Distinguishing Between Purpose, Calling, and Vision

Posted on September 11, 2024 by Ciara Myers, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.

For so long, I was drowning in these three popular words: purpose, calling, and vision. They were tossed all around and through me like spaghetti, used as buzzwords by life coaches and authors and gurus, and to be honest, my head was full and spinning.

One day, out of nowhere, I sensed something from God, a little diagram to help me process it all. I felt Him say, Draw a standard triangle. At the top of the triangle, write the word God. Follow the line down until you run into the next point, and write the word Jesus. To the right, the final point, add the words Holy Spirit.

I grabbed a piece of paper like I was given the answers to absolutely everything: quantum mechanics, treasure maps, a sacred secret. I couldn’t wait to see how God would unravel this diagram further. Then, I felt Him continue, Look at the drawing now. You have God at the very top (the Creator of the universe). Out of God flows Jesus (God’s Son) and the Holy Spirit (the Spirit that lives in you). Three beings in one collection. A packaged deal.

Classic Jesus, always starting with a spiritual analogy, and then, just when I’m convinced that I know what He’s going to say next, He answers me unexpectedly, Draw a second triangle. Label the top "Purpose.” The left, “Calling,” and the right “Vision.” Now, think of purpose, calling, and vision as another three-in-one bundle. Just as I am the origin of everything for all eternity, purpose is the origin of your day-to-day life on earth. From purpose, then and only then will your calling and vision be revealed.

This simple visual from God was inspiring and so juicy and helpful that I wrote this chapter immediately. I wanted to solidify His parallelism, to emboss this idea into my memory like a North Star, a bite-sized piece that you and I can chew on and refer to when we are confused. After revisiting this an infinite number of times, something activated in me. Where I was once intimidated by these three cultural words: purpose, calling, and vision, I now had an affinity for them, a spiritually rooted desire to learn absolutely everything. So for each word, I have pages and pages of Bible verses and notes, definitions from dictionaries, and my observations. I’ll save you from having to read all of that. Here is a condensed, honest version instead.

My Thoughts on Purpose
The definition of purpose is: “the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.”

Everything changes when I step into purpose. And yet it somehow feels the same. Life resembles what I’ve always known, but something’s different, elevated. Actions become increasingly aligned with values. Old versions of myself begin to shed, like a snake leaving its skin to make room for future growth. My once grandiose plans now seem futile, and my past feels easier to release. There’s more responsibility in the present moment, but I don’t mind the gravity. My insatiable desire to bring forth work that matters permeates the skin I’m living in, to the point where I wake up with chills in joyful anticipation of what the day might bring. My friendships become intentional, my relationship with myself matures, my work welcomes a level of vulnerability I didn’t know I possessed, and the idea of spirituality becomes paramount.

I’m letting the reality of this sink in today. I no longer have to find my purpose in life, for purpose has already found me. My purpose is bigger than the here and now, more influential than my career, and even more of a priority than my health and my family. Purpose is durable and trustworthy, like my favorite pair of denim. Purpose does not change based on my gender, age, or nationality. It does not shift with the seasons, as too many things do. It does not alter depending on the person. Nor does it leave me battered and betrayed once I’ve trusted in it. Purpose exists immediately upon acceptance and never abandons. My ultimate purpose in life is a daily relationship with God through sharing, accepting, learning, and never giving up. Although I’ve known this intellectually for most of my life, I’m only practicing it now. I am learning to show up for the relationship consistently, to love God as I’d love a friend, and to study Him in new and old ways. I’m learning how to worship Him rather than my things, how to humble myself without being self-deprecating, and how to walk in His direction for my life. God is the founder and CEO of purpose; He is the origin and reason for everything. You and I are hired, a part of His company forever, the lucky stewards of it all. We are accountable to Him, not to our good ideas. This feels quite liberating for those of us who’ve wasted time and money and tears trying to discover our unique purposes in life.

To this day, it seems too good to be true for me, a deep and requited love, a gift I don’t deserve. When I make God the purpose around which my day revolves, I feel strangely alive and aligned. Much like a bird flying above land, wings outstretched, soaring with the wind instead of against it. Some things are just meant to be. They are designed and destined for something specific, and you are one of those things. I’m one of those things. I’m learning to accept that and to inhale and exhale more deeply these days, finally trusting God as my daily purpose and allowing the winds of His love to keep me in flight and on the right path. Purpose lovingly and relentlessly requests me by name if I’ll only let Him in again and again. “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth” (Romans 9:17). “God does sovereignly choose who will serve His purposes and how.”

So I find myself looking out the window in my office today, full of purpose and existing without restraint. Sipping surprisingly hot tea, which leaves me breathless and spilling ravioli on my favorite sweater, cleaning it up now and scolding myself for eating anywhere other than the kitchen table. Legs folded beneath me, nestled in the warmth of a familiar blanket, typing away at the keyboard like it’s my last day on earth because I’m certain God’s visions are real. I’m writing this book out of obedience to God, out of calibration of self, and out of love for you. You’re likely reading this book for those you’ll impact someday. And the ripple effect of your life will continue to create waves of change further than you and I could ever imagine.

My Thoughts on Calling
The definition of calling is: “a strong inner impulse toward a particular course of action especially when accompanied by conviction of divine influence.”

If growing in a daily relationship with God and leading others to His love is our one true purpose, the reason we play the game, then our personal calling is where we play—the space—in which we live out that greater purpose. To me, personal calling is a bit different from purpose because it refers to the overarching theme of our life’s efforts. It’s something you and I are inherently attracted to and willingly sign up for over and over again. No matter what, you can’t seem to hide from it for long because it always lights a fire in you. The magic is so prevalent in the midst of that thing you’re doing that to stop doing it would feel like a part of you died. It would feel like failure. Your calling is the similarity of the things you are drawn to now, those things that were always within you and will inevitably be there, calling you to them in the future.

I sometimes think we will find a way to incorporate our calling into the jobs we pursue. Here’s a tip: Make a list of the pros of each of your past jobs, and you’ll discover a commonality, the through-thread that existed in all of them. If you’ve worked as a nanny, as a nurse, or volunteered in a retirement home, the calling over your life is likely caregiving. It’s the space on earth in which you’ll live out God’s greater purpose for you. It’s the where to your why.

Personal callings are not always reflected in our career choices. If I love teaching or presenting information, and I just know that I’m called to do it somehow, then nothing should keep me from it. Not even my job. I can work during the day and teach people on the weekends at workshops or through an online course. Whether the calling makes money or not, whether it’s my day job or not, is irrelevant.
It took me a long time and much introspection to realize that my calling is creating. I’ve been creating something from nothing for as long as I can remember. I’ve spent most of my life creating images, words, products, and ideas in the sincere hope that I can brighten someone’s day or lead them closer to God’s love. If I touch one life with a business I build, a book I write, or a product I produce, I feel completely in my element, perfectly inside my calling.

I’ve worked seemingly unrelated jobs over the years: marketing in the information technology space, entrepreneurship, radio, television, retail, office jobs, blogging, writing, and being a stay-at-home parent. The commonality is the white space, the blank page, the ability to bring something into the world that ceases to exist, to mold, to shape. As a child, I enjoyed competing in things like storytelling and oral reading. As an older student, I created choreography for school programs. I worked endlessly to build things in myself that would have lasting effects on others. None of it felt like work, and I definitely wasn’t being paid to do it. It simply felt like an extension of me, like I could thrive there in that space of creativity. It was the where to my why. God did not call me to lead others to Christ using numbers. And that’s okay. Someone else is called for that. Maybe someone like you or someone you know.

At seventeen, my husband, Paul, prayed for God to reveal what he should study in school, and what he should do with the rest of his life. Soon, he began to feel like God answered his prayer by laying the word "people” on his heart. God never gave him a physical sign or spoke to Him audibly, but Paul kept coming back to that word again … “people.” I asked my husband how he decided to pursue counseling from that one word, and he said, “I believe the most important creation God ever made was humankind. If I can learn how to help human beings become better, healthier versions of themselves through counseling, then maybe that’s how I can best help people.”

I guess he could have chosen to become a medical doctor or surgeon, physically helping people heal. But he chose counseling and never wavered. That decision wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough. He knew it would honor God’s prompting, so it became his calling. Paul is far from perfect and has made many mistakes throughout his life. But God has continued to bless his consistency to this calling. And as a somewhat objective third party, I can see how all of this tracks. Paul is an extrovert. He receives energy when engaging with others. People have always been a central part of his life, and it only makes sense that God would call him to help them in some way. We might sell our group counseling practice one day, or he might stop counseling altogether, but he will always find a way to help people. He might become a professor or work as a nutritionist, but the calling—the people—will always be the where to his why.

Humans are complex, but my idea of a personal calling is simple. Try not to force anything other than your instinctual gut feeling and the evidence of your real life. If there is a theme you almost always find yourself in or feel like you couldn’t live without doing it, what is that for you? It can be something as vague as working with your hands. Maybe you have the biggest heart for animals. Or you are convinced that you should be working in the justice system. Remember, calling is not always super-specific. Mine is creating. Paul’s is people. Think of it as the general umbrella you find yourself under no matter what job you take, who you meet, or where you live. What’s the commonality? Maybe your calling is something like being outdoors. There are many ways you could fulfill life’s bigger purpose inside that calling. You could mow the lawn of an elderly neighbor each week (the where) to showcase God’s love (the why), or help preserve the earth by volunteering to clean up at the National Park Service. You could grow food for your community in your backyard or bring others an educational form of escapism as a travel writer.
I create because I don’t want to live in a world without it for I would be resisting what I know is true and God-given. It’s one of the things that He carefully crafted inside me to use for the benefit of others. So what intrigues you the most? What seems obvious, like you’re somehow always pulled toward it? What do people compliment you on or ask you for help with? When do you come alive and feel the most “you” you’ve ever felt? Try looking at yourself objectively. I know it can be a challenge, especially through the lens of insecurity.

I think that’s why God gave me that triangle diagram in the first place, to show me how important it is that we meet with Him first, and often, so that our callings and visions can flow from Him directly. Our calling to live out God’s purpose is both a corporate call and an individual call that we get to respond to. Once we pursue ours wholeheartedly, we will live lives of greater meaning, leading others to God’s love in the way He intended us to do it. And simply put, there’s nothing more satisfying. “While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them’” (Acts 13:2).

The first part of that verse is especially important: “while they were worshiping and fasting.” It does not say, “while they were fretting and taking more personality tests.” Ask God to reveal your calling during your daily prayer routine, and in time, He’ll give you the answer.

My Thoughts on Vision
The definition of vision is: “a supernatural appearance that conveys a revelation. Unusual discernment or foresight. A manifestation to the senses of something immaterial.”

If purpose is the overall goal (the why), and personal calling is the field in which we play the game (the where), then vision is the playbook (the how). A playbook helps a player visualize the target ahead. It knows what is needed to achieve the end goal. God uses visions to reveal both the bigger picture and the specifics of what He needs us to do.

One New Year’s Eve, as the world rang in the year’s final seconds with sequins and champagne, I kept the night a secret, inside with an old playlist and a new poster board. Surrounded by magazines, scissors, and glue, I carefully pieced together a vision board for the upcoming year. I forgot I did this exercise until I recently found a picture of it almost a decade later. Can you guess what was on it? Almost everything I’m doing now! Pictures of family life, words I live by, goals I’ve achieved, and little frivolous details like the color of the hardwood floor I’m standing on today. None of the things I glued to that poster board existed back then, but I believe that God honored what I put on paper. Habakkuk 2:2 says,

Then the Lord replied: Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.

John MacArthur says in his Bible Commentary about this verse,

The instructions to write it down serve as a reminder that it would surely occur. Habakkuk was to record the vision to preserve it for posterity, so that all who read it would know of the certainty of its fulfillment. Although a period of time would occur before its fulfillment, all were to know that it would occur at God’s appointed time.

A vision isn’t tangible right away. It’s a flash into the future—a “definitive” in the unknown. When you focus and imagine something in your mind’s eye, that is vision. If it continues to tug at your heart night after night, and if it aligns with scripture, it might be a vision from God. I would even go so far as to say that you may experience feelings of sadness, anger, and restlessness until you take the first step. There are a few examples of visions in the Bible in which people got to see or hear from Jesus. For most of us, though, a vision will be intermingled with the simple subtleties of our everyday pursuits.
Some days, when I’m feeling slightly sweeter and more romantic, I’ll tape cute little notes in places I know my husband will find them. Because I know him intimately, I know where he spends his time, and I want him to feel special. Much the same way, God speaks to me in distinctive and relevant ways because He understands me better than anyone else. He knows what will spark my attention and what I’ll overlook. My visions will not come in the same format yours will, and that’s more than okay. It’s individualized and exciting that way!

Homework Assignment
Write down your purpose, your calling, and a vision God might be nudging you toward. I’ll go first.
My Purpose: The reason I exist; my why is to believe in God, to accept that Jesus died for me, and to use my life in a way that brings others into tangible awareness of His love. When I pursue Him daily, His callings and visions for my life become easier to see.

My Calling: The strong inner impulse toward a particular course of action, my where, is to create something from nothing. My actions will be creative, my methods will be based on the scriptures, and my motives will derive from my all-encompassing love for God. My job might not always be in a creative industry, but I will always create for God and others when I can, whether by paid work or volunteer service.

My Visions: Manifestations of something immaterial, my how, will come and go solely based on my willingness to follow God’s prompting through the Holy Spirit. Visions continue to transform me into the type of person, mother, wife, daughter, and friend that God is asking me to be. Vision birthed our group counseling practice, and vision is writing this book.