Vocation

For the German Reformer Martin Luther it was not only those called to be monks, nuns or priests who had a vocation from God. Luther noted that everyone has a calling from God no matter their station in life.

In 1990, the Synod of Orthodox Bishops published a statement saying,

All are called to be saints (to be Christians), but each person is called to do so in his or her own unique way.... Some will work primarily in a physical way, others will work intellectually. Some will be artists, scientists, business people, and professionals. In the eyes of God none is better than the other is."

As the poet W.H. Auden put it,

You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation,

you have only to watch his eyes:
a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon

making a primary incision,
a clerk completing a bill of lading,

wear the same rapt expression,
forgetting themselves in a function...

There should be monuments, the should be
odes...

to the first flaker of flints
who forgot his dinner,

the first collector of sea-shells
to remain celibate.

Your vocation is the work you do that best uses the gifts God has given you. You may work in a job to pay the bills while your true vocation is a scout leader. Or your job might itself be your vocation as you are the teacher, sailor, banker, nurse (or whatever it is) that God created you to be, and you serve others through that vocation. It is the idea captured in the English tombstone inscription that reads,

“Here lies John Smyth who cobbled shoes in this town 40 years to the glory of God.”