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You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good, and Beautiful
What if your vocation doesn't align with your passion?
Some people are lucky enough to get paid to do what they love. But many are not.
In You Have a Calling, award-winning author Karen Swallow Prior has encouraging If you pursue the good, true, and beautiful in all your work, you will find your greatest fulfillment. In this book, you'll discover
· how knowing the crucial difference between passion and calling transforms how you view work;
· how to finding meaning in every role, regardless of your career; and
· how everyday work reflects the image of God through truth, goodness, and beauty.
In an age when passion and calling are often confused, Prior helps you understand that passions come from within, while your calling, or vocation, comes from without and is about being called by others to serve. That crucial distinction can help you understand how God can use both your passions and our work, even if for different purposes.
This book will appeal to everyone who wants to know that their daily work, ordinary though it may be, can fulfill a higher calling to God. You will gain a renewed sense of purpose, knowing you are created for virtue in all you do because you are created in the image of God.
Some people are lucky enough to get paid to do what they love. But many are not.
In You Have a Calling, award-winning author Karen Swallow Prior has encouraging If you pursue the good, true, and beautiful in all your work, you will find your greatest fulfillment. In this book, you'll discover
· how knowing the crucial difference between passion and calling transforms how you view work;
· how to finding meaning in every role, regardless of your career; and
· how everyday work reflects the image of God through truth, goodness, and beauty.
In an age when passion and calling are often confused, Prior helps you understand that passions come from within, while your calling, or vocation, comes from without and is about being called by others to serve. That crucial distinction can help you understand how God can use both your passions and our work, even if for different purposes.
This book will appeal to everyone who wants to know that their daily work, ordinary though it may be, can fulfill a higher calling to God. You will gain a renewed sense of purpose, knowing you are created for virtue in all you do because you are created in the image of God.
146 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 5, 2025
90 people are currently reading
880 people want to read
About the author
Karen Swallow Prior
34 books758 followersKaren Swallow Prior (PhD, SUNY Buffalo) is the award-winning author of The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis; On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books; Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More--Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist; and Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me. She is a frequent speaker, a monthly columnist at Religion News Service, and has written for Christianity Today, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Vox. She is a Contributing Editor for Comment, a founding member of The Pelican Project, a Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum, and a Senior Fellow at the International Alliance for Christian Education.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
September 4, 2025
As part of a very helpful conversation last year (precisely about these sorts of things), Karen recommended I check out this book of hers when it released. What I didn’t know then was just how much more complicated these questions would feel a year later - Where to go next in academia? What about ministry? What paths are there for a woman pursuing theology? And, even more so in this exact moment, what does the calling to grow and nourish two little twins look like? How do all of these pieces fit together? This book gives a comprehensive look at all of life and helps me take a deep breath in recognizing that moving slowly is okay, that callings shift throughout life, and that a crucially important part of this whole thing is how I do whatever work that’s before me in a way that is true, good, and beautiful. (This is particularly relevant as most of my “work” right now involves going to lots and lots of medical appointments andddd scheduling them. And I hate administrative tasks, so it’s a real call to me to do this work well not only for the sake of the twins’ health but for the people I interact with and the God who has called me to this challenging moment.)
Maybe the best single idea (for me at least) is that callings are external. Prior applies this idea in many different ways, but I found it helpful to clear away the fluff in my mind and think about what the consistent threads of my life have been-what are the things others have repeatedly said I’m clearly made for? What places have others called me into? Teaching and writing (and often those two in conjunction) are by far the most obvious answers.
All in all, a most helpful book.
Maybe the best single idea (for me at least) is that callings are external. Prior applies this idea in many different ways, but I found it helpful to clear away the fluff in my mind and think about what the consistent threads of my life have been-what are the things others have repeatedly said I’m clearly made for? What places have others called me into? Teaching and writing (and often those two in conjunction) are by far the most obvious answers.
All in all, a most helpful book.
October 13, 2025
In her signature style, K. S. Prior pays careful attention to key words needed to unpack the reality of our calling as humans, words that she opens to us through insightful, dense observations drawn from rich literature, embodied in beautiful poems.
I was particularly touched by the implications of the origin of the word passion, same as patience (virtuous endurance of the called-for suffering as opposed to impatient resistance of it), whose archetypes are the martyrs and the lovers, and above all, Christ, the Suffering Servant.
I resonated so much with all the ideas related to work ethic, as:
* how we work is more important than what the work is. * working right trumps finding the right work.
* Incompetence & untruth always result when the secular vocation is treated as a thing alian to religion. The only Christian work is good work well done.
But of course, the pinnacle of the book lies in the uncovering of the three: the truth, the good and the beautiful.
I loved the descriptions of the qualities (with their practical implications) of beauty and its roles.
Here are some scattered notes I took along the way (listen to the book so I did not keep up with the authors mentioned):
Qualities
* 1.Proportion
* 2.Luminosity (clarity, illumination)
* 3.Integrity
1. Balance of right proportions - like the rule of thirds; in life: balancing the multiple vocations rightly in each season.
2. Appropriate amount and placement of light - illuminating difficult subjects, making connections, shedding more light than heat; exposing; explaining; being radiant; joy, glow
3. Integrity: honesty fairness; but also sense of completeness; wholeness - bring your whole self to your calling. Proper boundaries between various roles and relationships. She has such good passages and quotation to make her point :
"Beauty cultivates "unselfing", invites even demands replication, creativity - being recreated. It is generative generous.
"Beauty is harmony between order and wonder, between pattern and newness, between perfection and surprise." "Break the conventions, keep the commandments."
Beautful = Fair =Just - call for symmetry within relationships - Fittingness
Vocation: match our surroundings to ourselves and ourselves to our surroundings; each singing what belong to him or her and to none else.
The fitting happens along the way in the pursuit of the good the true and the beautiful
I was particularly touched by the implications of the origin of the word passion, same as patience (virtuous endurance of the called-for suffering as opposed to impatient resistance of it), whose archetypes are the martyrs and the lovers, and above all, Christ, the Suffering Servant.
I resonated so much with all the ideas related to work ethic, as:
* how we work is more important than what the work is. * working right trumps finding the right work.
* Incompetence & untruth always result when the secular vocation is treated as a thing alian to religion. The only Christian work is good work well done.
But of course, the pinnacle of the book lies in the uncovering of the three: the truth, the good and the beautiful.
I loved the descriptions of the qualities (with their practical implications) of beauty and its roles.
Here are some scattered notes I took along the way (listen to the book so I did not keep up with the authors mentioned):
Qualities
* 1.Proportion
* 2.Luminosity (clarity, illumination)
* 3.Integrity
1. Balance of right proportions - like the rule of thirds; in life: balancing the multiple vocations rightly in each season.
2. Appropriate amount and placement of light - illuminating difficult subjects, making connections, shedding more light than heat; exposing; explaining; being radiant; joy, glow
3. Integrity: honesty fairness; but also sense of completeness; wholeness - bring your whole self to your calling. Proper boundaries between various roles and relationships. She has such good passages and quotation to make her point :
"Beauty cultivates "unselfing", invites even demands replication, creativity - being recreated. It is generative generous.
"Beauty is harmony between order and wonder, between pattern and newness, between perfection and surprise." "Break the conventions, keep the commandments."
Beautful = Fair =Just - call for symmetry within relationships - Fittingness
Vocation: match our surroundings to ourselves and ourselves to our surroundings; each singing what belong to him or her and to none else.
The fitting happens along the way in the pursuit of the good the true and the beautiful
September 16, 2025
"God does create each of us according to his plans and purposes. And he gives us desires to draw us toward his purposes...Desires often run deeper, more quietly, perhaps even hidden from ourselves."
"God will cultivate within us desires for the good things he has for us"
Oh let us all have faith enough to trust in our small infant desires, knowing that God will expand these desires so we may love Him more through them.
"God will cultivate within us desires for the good things he has for us"
Oh let us all have faith enough to trust in our small infant desires, knowing that God will expand these desires so we may love Him more through them.
January 29, 2026
Going on my “required reading in high school” list. 💥
A few things I’m mulling over and want to be able to find again easily:
Sometimes the best way to answer hard questions is to ask good ones.
Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life" (John 14:6).
A way is a manner of going. It is the form our lives take on this worldly journey. The Christian is called to follow the way of Jesus. In Jesus is all truth, and he is truth. The answers to all our questions can be seen only by his light. And in him is all the goodness this life has to offer. In him alone is the good life. And the way of Jesus is beautiful.!
Jesus is the true, the good, and the beautiful.
The church, Sayers argues, ought not concede to the wrong-headed, worldly idea that one's life "is divided into the time he spends on his work and the time he spends in serving God. He must be able to serve God in his work, and the work itself must be accepted and respected as the medium of divine creation."
When was the last time you thought of your work as the medium— the paint, the film, the ink, the lead, the stage, the viola, the field, the boardroom, the Zoom call, the dough, the sewing machine, the knitting needles, the laptop-for God's creative activity? When was the last time you thought of yourself as an artist even in the most mundane or ordinary daily work? You are his hands and feet. He works through you. He creates through you.
"That is our calling: co-creation," writes Madeleine L'Engle. “Every single one of us, without exception, is called to co-create with God."
“And some people," my father said quietly,
"grow tomatoes." This, too, is co-creation.
Co-creation is perhaps the most fruitful reading of Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 31. Through her works the Lord's work is done. She is, like the church itself, Christ's bodily presence in the world, making him known through her wise, gracious, good work.
Human beings will always have work. It is part of the human condition. Work itself is a good that is part of God's original design and therefore contributes to human flourish-ing. And while work and calling do overlap at times, they are not the same (as I will keep repeating throughout these pages).
Perhaps recognizing how they are different can help us appreciate what each is and what role each has in our individual lives and in our communal life together.
We were created to work-just as our Creator works-and that work will be part of the new heaven and the new earth.
Understanding that can give us the perspective that work will never end—not because it's bad but because it's good.
Newport's research shows that we become more passionate about what we become good at - and being good at something takes time, experience, and experimentation.
Over the ensuing years, in my role as a college professor, I held my students to high expectations, while at the same time helping them see the world more realistically than they tended to. Young people of all times tend toward idealism, of course. But the young people I taught were living in a new world in which social media was inundating them with image after image of shiny, happy people who seemingly became overnight successes at whatever they had set their hearts on when they were mere teens.
When asked by aspiring writers, creatives, and future academics how to be like me, I would generally begin by saying, “Well, if you want to be like me, you won't publish your first book until you’re 47.”
…I just think dreams are more readily achieved by having realistic ones.
You didn't have to grow up in this environment to be affected by it, however. The idea that we all must pursue our passion is in the air we breathe. It has affected us all.
But before we consider the wisdom of pursuing your passion, we need to know what passion is.
The original Latin root word from which the word "pas-sion" comes means "suffering."
Isaiah 52-53 | With these examples, we can see that suffering isn't always merely something bad that happens to us but can be willingly endured for something greater.
But understanding that passion in its true sense entails suffering can help us distinguish between something that piques our curiosity or offers a mild, passing interest and those things that are burning drives or desires deep within.
Desires often run deeper, more quietly, perhaps even hidden from ourselves. How often do we pursue one thing-a job, a membership, a designer bag-not because we want that thing but because we think having that thing will fulfill some deeper desire, such as the desire for belonging or acceptance?
But we live in a hyperbolic age. This is an age in which everything is the best thing ever (or the worst thing ever), an age in which we use the word "awesome" when we finally land on that mutually workable date for coffee between two over-scheduled friends, leaving us no word with which to express something truly awesome-like, say, the glory of God. (I am not immune to this tendency! If you ask me what my favorite novel is or the one everyone should read, I will give you a list.
They are all my "favorite" !)
Yet the truth is that we don't have to be passionate about everything— or even about many things. In fact, it is good and healthy to distinguish between degrees of desire and drive.
Purpose is the why; passion is the how.
In sum, a passion or desire is not good or bad in and of itself. Like loyalty, the goodness of a desire depends on the goodness of its object.
Passions begin inside of us but express themselves outside of us.
Recognizing all this can, I think, help us embrace our passions and, at the same time, help us hold them loosely with wonder and delight, not for the passions themselves but rather for how they can draw us toward the true, the good, and the beautiful things of the world.
It's important to parse out the various meanings and assumptions of these words and phrases, because they can easily get funneled into narrow applications that distort our understanding and our expectations. I've had countless people tell me that hearing this message, "Pursue your passion," has made them feel like a failure for not being passionate about their jobs. Some have even said they have heard this advice so often that they’ve never stopped to think about the fact that many (if not most) people aren't passionate about what they do for a living-that it's just a living. (Notice that it's called "a living," not "living." There's a difference.)
Newport's research shows, he argues, that it's hard to predict in advance what you'll eventually grow to love.”
Newport says it is unfortunate that this canard "convinces people that somewhere there's a magic “right' job waiting for them, and that if they find it, they'll immediately recognize that this is the work they were meant to do.
As Os Guinness explains, "Giftedness does not stand alone in helping us discern our callings. It lines up alongside other factors, such as family heritage, our life opportunities, God's guidance, and our unquestioning readiness to do what he shows.”
This hard truth gets to the heart of what it means to be called.
Fulfillment is like happiness in this way. Happiness, says Viktor Frankl (writing following his miraculous survival after being imprisoned in four Nazi concentration camps) “cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the product of ones surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen.”
In Courage and Calling, Gordon Smith draws on the different gifts and callings described by Paul in Romans 12:6-8 to show how even the specific way in which we view the world as broken reflects the giftings God has given us. The prophet thinks the world needs truth; the teacher sees the world as needing to learn; the servant notices unmet needs. Discerning your vocation comes, in part, from seeing the specific ways in which you feel the brokenness of the world. Meeting that need in the world through your specific gifts can bring you deep gladness- even if it's not always fun.
Remember that "the need does not determine the call, as Gordon Smith points out.
We long for truth, goodness, and beauty because, being made in God's image, we long for him.
Put differently, truth is the aim of our intellect. Goodness expresses our moral will. Beauty speaks to our aesthetic sense.
We pursue truth in our thinking. We pursue goodness in our doing. We pursue beauty through our senses and in our feeling. To cultivate these abilities is to pursue what the ancient philosophers described as the good life— or what Jesus called the abundant life (John 10:10).
What does it mean to pursue truth in our callings?
It means at least four things: thinking about truth itself, knowing the truth about ourselves, knowing the truth about the work we might be called to do, and walking in truth in all that we do.
Since there is no truth apart from goodness and beauty, any attempt to defend truth without the others is doomed to fail. Perhaps this helps explain why even Christians are increasingly succumbing to the relativism of our post-truth culture. Apart from goodness and beauty, we, too, will inevitably fall prey to the very relativism we aim to counter.
(John 18:37-38)
It was not the knowledge that was made available from the tree in Eden that was forbidden to Adam and Eve. It was the way in which that knowledge was gained that was wrong.
Indeed, a better translation of the name of that tree - "the tree of knowing good and bad" — makes this point clearer, according to BibleProject.
The goodness we see in the world, even in its fallen state, is good because God made the world good. The good works we are able to do, even in our fallen human condition, are good only because they reflect his goodness. "We are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works" (Eph. 2:10). Our good works and good lives give glory to God (Matt. 5:16; 1 Pet. 2:12).
Though this world is marked by unspeakable suffering and sin, it is filled with goodness, too, because God is good.
As the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it in one of his most famous poems, "The world is charged with the grandeur of God." The good life is one that sees and celebrates the fullness of the earth and its infinite goodness-and contributes to that goodness. This is the very purpose of your calling.
“Bread-making takes time, another created reality that communicates to us about God's glory. It takes time for a grain of wheat to die in the ground and then to grow. It takes time to harvest. It takes time for the yeast to work. It takes time to mix ingredients. It takes time to bake them. And all that time is good.”
Sayers “The Church's approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. ... A building must be good architecture before it can be a good church.”
"God is not served by technical incompetence; and incompetence and untruth always result when the secular vocation is treated as a thing alien to religion.
In sum, Sayers's argument is this: "The only Christian work is good work well done."
BOOK to check out : Garry Friesen, Decision Making and the Will of God
…aesthetic experience is central to our very humanity, to the image of God in us.
Beauty calls.
It can be hard it can be to distinguish beauty from goodness and truth. Beauty is the form, the outward showing. Ultimately, form and content can't be sepa-rated, although we can distinguish them in our thinking.
To understand the spiritual reality in a work of art or a work of nature is to discern truth. Beauty "incites in us a longing for truth," according to philosopher Elaine Scarry, because the very act of judging beauty causes us to consider the very ideas of certainty and error as we are confronted with the certainty (or error) in our judgment.
Because our experience of beauty depends on our first perceiving and then recognizing the beauty before us, seeing the way we bring beauty into our daily work requires our attention and intention.
Focusing more on the spiritual or intellectual than the physical can lead Christians to undervalue the role that sensory or aesthetic experience plays in our formation and under-standing. But God does not disregard the physical or material. Indeed, it was God who ordained to bring salvation to humanity by taking on a bodily form in the person of Jesus Christ.
When the Bible speaks of the glory of God, it is speaking of his beauty. It is his magnificence made manifest.
The blessings proclaimed by Christ in his Sermon on the Mount are called the "Beatitudes, a word that comes from the same Indo-European root for the word "beautiful." Blessed— and beautiful-are the lives of those marked by meekness, mercy, mourning, peacefulness, purity, hunger for justice, and persecution for justice's sake. Most of these are attributes and conditions we would not seek, yet they serve as refining fires that burn away impurities to make precious metals shine.
this is something which we may also do deliberately: give attention to nature in order to clear our minds of selfish care.
At the moment we see something beautiful, we undergo a radical decentering... It is not that we cease to stand at the center of the world, for we never stood there. It is that we cease to stand even at the center of our own world. We willingly cede our ground to the thing that stands before us. | Elaine Scarry
Beauty draws us out of ourselves and connects us to others because beauty is something we want to share with others.
Beauty cultivates unselfing.
Fittingness is our attempt to make order in the world and to feel at home in it.
A few things I’m mulling over and want to be able to find again easily:
Sometimes the best way to answer hard questions is to ask good ones.
Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life" (John 14:6).
A way is a manner of going. It is the form our lives take on this worldly journey. The Christian is called to follow the way of Jesus. In Jesus is all truth, and he is truth. The answers to all our questions can be seen only by his light. And in him is all the goodness this life has to offer. In him alone is the good life. And the way of Jesus is beautiful.!
Jesus is the true, the good, and the beautiful.
The church, Sayers argues, ought not concede to the wrong-headed, worldly idea that one's life "is divided into the time he spends on his work and the time he spends in serving God. He must be able to serve God in his work, and the work itself must be accepted and respected as the medium of divine creation."
When was the last time you thought of your work as the medium— the paint, the film, the ink, the lead, the stage, the viola, the field, the boardroom, the Zoom call, the dough, the sewing machine, the knitting needles, the laptop-for God's creative activity? When was the last time you thought of yourself as an artist even in the most mundane or ordinary daily work? You are his hands and feet. He works through you. He creates through you.
"That is our calling: co-creation," writes Madeleine L'Engle. “Every single one of us, without exception, is called to co-create with God."
“And some people," my father said quietly,
"grow tomatoes." This, too, is co-creation.
Co-creation is perhaps the most fruitful reading of Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 31. Through her works the Lord's work is done. She is, like the church itself, Christ's bodily presence in the world, making him known through her wise, gracious, good work.
Human beings will always have work. It is part of the human condition. Work itself is a good that is part of God's original design and therefore contributes to human flourish-ing. And while work and calling do overlap at times, they are not the same (as I will keep repeating throughout these pages).
Perhaps recognizing how they are different can help us appreciate what each is and what role each has in our individual lives and in our communal life together.
We were created to work-just as our Creator works-and that work will be part of the new heaven and the new earth.
Understanding that can give us the perspective that work will never end—not because it's bad but because it's good.
Newport's research shows that we become more passionate about what we become good at - and being good at something takes time, experience, and experimentation.
Over the ensuing years, in my role as a college professor, I held my students to high expectations, while at the same time helping them see the world more realistically than they tended to. Young people of all times tend toward idealism, of course. But the young people I taught were living in a new world in which social media was inundating them with image after image of shiny, happy people who seemingly became overnight successes at whatever they had set their hearts on when they were mere teens.
When asked by aspiring writers, creatives, and future academics how to be like me, I would generally begin by saying, “Well, if you want to be like me, you won't publish your first book until you’re 47.”
…I just think dreams are more readily achieved by having realistic ones.
You didn't have to grow up in this environment to be affected by it, however. The idea that we all must pursue our passion is in the air we breathe. It has affected us all.
But before we consider the wisdom of pursuing your passion, we need to know what passion is.
The original Latin root word from which the word "pas-sion" comes means "suffering."
Isaiah 52-53 | With these examples, we can see that suffering isn't always merely something bad that happens to us but can be willingly endured for something greater.
But understanding that passion in its true sense entails suffering can help us distinguish between something that piques our curiosity or offers a mild, passing interest and those things that are burning drives or desires deep within.
Desires often run deeper, more quietly, perhaps even hidden from ourselves. How often do we pursue one thing-a job, a membership, a designer bag-not because we want that thing but because we think having that thing will fulfill some deeper desire, such as the desire for belonging or acceptance?
But we live in a hyperbolic age. This is an age in which everything is the best thing ever (or the worst thing ever), an age in which we use the word "awesome" when we finally land on that mutually workable date for coffee between two over-scheduled friends, leaving us no word with which to express something truly awesome-like, say, the glory of God. (I am not immune to this tendency! If you ask me what my favorite novel is or the one everyone should read, I will give you a list.
They are all my "favorite" !)
Yet the truth is that we don't have to be passionate about everything— or even about many things. In fact, it is good and healthy to distinguish between degrees of desire and drive.
Purpose is the why; passion is the how.
In sum, a passion or desire is not good or bad in and of itself. Like loyalty, the goodness of a desire depends on the goodness of its object.
Passions begin inside of us but express themselves outside of us.
Recognizing all this can, I think, help us embrace our passions and, at the same time, help us hold them loosely with wonder and delight, not for the passions themselves but rather for how they can draw us toward the true, the good, and the beautiful things of the world.
It's important to parse out the various meanings and assumptions of these words and phrases, because they can easily get funneled into narrow applications that distort our understanding and our expectations. I've had countless people tell me that hearing this message, "Pursue your passion," has made them feel like a failure for not being passionate about their jobs. Some have even said they have heard this advice so often that they’ve never stopped to think about the fact that many (if not most) people aren't passionate about what they do for a living-that it's just a living. (Notice that it's called "a living," not "living." There's a difference.)
Newport's research shows, he argues, that it's hard to predict in advance what you'll eventually grow to love.”
Newport says it is unfortunate that this canard "convinces people that somewhere there's a magic “right' job waiting for them, and that if they find it, they'll immediately recognize that this is the work they were meant to do.
As Os Guinness explains, "Giftedness does not stand alone in helping us discern our callings. It lines up alongside other factors, such as family heritage, our life opportunities, God's guidance, and our unquestioning readiness to do what he shows.”
This hard truth gets to the heart of what it means to be called.
Fulfillment is like happiness in this way. Happiness, says Viktor Frankl (writing following his miraculous survival after being imprisoned in four Nazi concentration camps) “cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the product of ones surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen.”
In Courage and Calling, Gordon Smith draws on the different gifts and callings described by Paul in Romans 12:6-8 to show how even the specific way in which we view the world as broken reflects the giftings God has given us. The prophet thinks the world needs truth; the teacher sees the world as needing to learn; the servant notices unmet needs. Discerning your vocation comes, in part, from seeing the specific ways in which you feel the brokenness of the world. Meeting that need in the world through your specific gifts can bring you deep gladness- even if it's not always fun.
Remember that "the need does not determine the call, as Gordon Smith points out.
We long for truth, goodness, and beauty because, being made in God's image, we long for him.
Put differently, truth is the aim of our intellect. Goodness expresses our moral will. Beauty speaks to our aesthetic sense.
We pursue truth in our thinking. We pursue goodness in our doing. We pursue beauty through our senses and in our feeling. To cultivate these abilities is to pursue what the ancient philosophers described as the good life— or what Jesus called the abundant life (John 10:10).
What does it mean to pursue truth in our callings?
It means at least four things: thinking about truth itself, knowing the truth about ourselves, knowing the truth about the work we might be called to do, and walking in truth in all that we do.
Since there is no truth apart from goodness and beauty, any attempt to defend truth without the others is doomed to fail. Perhaps this helps explain why even Christians are increasingly succumbing to the relativism of our post-truth culture. Apart from goodness and beauty, we, too, will inevitably fall prey to the very relativism we aim to counter.
(John 18:37-38)
It was not the knowledge that was made available from the tree in Eden that was forbidden to Adam and Eve. It was the way in which that knowledge was gained that was wrong.
Indeed, a better translation of the name of that tree - "the tree of knowing good and bad" — makes this point clearer, according to BibleProject.
The goodness we see in the world, even in its fallen state, is good because God made the world good. The good works we are able to do, even in our fallen human condition, are good only because they reflect his goodness. "We are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works" (Eph. 2:10). Our good works and good lives give glory to God (Matt. 5:16; 1 Pet. 2:12).
Though this world is marked by unspeakable suffering and sin, it is filled with goodness, too, because God is good.
As the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it in one of his most famous poems, "The world is charged with the grandeur of God." The good life is one that sees and celebrates the fullness of the earth and its infinite goodness-and contributes to that goodness. This is the very purpose of your calling.
“Bread-making takes time, another created reality that communicates to us about God's glory. It takes time for a grain of wheat to die in the ground and then to grow. It takes time to harvest. It takes time for the yeast to work. It takes time to mix ingredients. It takes time to bake them. And all that time is good.”
Sayers “The Church's approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. ... A building must be good architecture before it can be a good church.”
"God is not served by technical incompetence; and incompetence and untruth always result when the secular vocation is treated as a thing alien to religion.
In sum, Sayers's argument is this: "The only Christian work is good work well done."
BOOK to check out : Garry Friesen, Decision Making and the Will of God
…aesthetic experience is central to our very humanity, to the image of God in us.
Beauty calls.
It can be hard it can be to distinguish beauty from goodness and truth. Beauty is the form, the outward showing. Ultimately, form and content can't be sepa-rated, although we can distinguish them in our thinking.
To understand the spiritual reality in a work of art or a work of nature is to discern truth. Beauty "incites in us a longing for truth," according to philosopher Elaine Scarry, because the very act of judging beauty causes us to consider the very ideas of certainty and error as we are confronted with the certainty (or error) in our judgment.
Because our experience of beauty depends on our first perceiving and then recognizing the beauty before us, seeing the way we bring beauty into our daily work requires our attention and intention.
Focusing more on the spiritual or intellectual than the physical can lead Christians to undervalue the role that sensory or aesthetic experience plays in our formation and under-standing. But God does not disregard the physical or material. Indeed, it was God who ordained to bring salvation to humanity by taking on a bodily form in the person of Jesus Christ.
When the Bible speaks of the glory of God, it is speaking of his beauty. It is his magnificence made manifest.
The blessings proclaimed by Christ in his Sermon on the Mount are called the "Beatitudes, a word that comes from the same Indo-European root for the word "beautiful." Blessed— and beautiful-are the lives of those marked by meekness, mercy, mourning, peacefulness, purity, hunger for justice, and persecution for justice's sake. Most of these are attributes and conditions we would not seek, yet they serve as refining fires that burn away impurities to make precious metals shine.
this is something which we may also do deliberately: give attention to nature in order to clear our minds of selfish care.
At the moment we see something beautiful, we undergo a radical decentering... It is not that we cease to stand at the center of the world, for we never stood there. It is that we cease to stand even at the center of our own world. We willingly cede our ground to the thing that stands before us. | Elaine Scarry
Beauty draws us out of ourselves and connects us to others because beauty is something we want to share with others.
Beauty cultivates unselfing.
Fittingness is our attempt to make order in the world and to feel at home in it.
December 15, 2025
3.5 stars
There is a lot about this book that is good and true; I especially appreciate that Prior recognizes that the greatest calling a person can have is the one God has for them - and that we're all called to know and love God.
That said, this isn't as practical as I would prefer. Also, I believe that Prior misunderstands a few biblical verses, thus taking them out of context to fit her arguments.
The second half of the book is even less practical than the first, and it doesn’t connect very smoothly with the earlier material.
One quote I really liked: “...seeing something and wanting it is different from being called to do that thing.” (p 102)
There is a lot about this book that is good and true; I especially appreciate that Prior recognizes that the greatest calling a person can have is the one God has for them - and that we're all called to know and love God.
That said, this isn't as practical as I would prefer. Also, I believe that Prior misunderstands a few biblical verses, thus taking them out of context to fit her arguments.
The second half of the book is even less practical than the first, and it doesn’t connect very smoothly with the earlier material.
One quote I really liked: “...seeing something and wanting it is different from being called to do that thing.” (p 102)
January 26, 2026
Maybe it’s my communication studies degree or the fact that the only AP tests I passed were in English, but I’m a sucker for good synthesizing. And Karen Swallow Prior can synthesize like no one’s business. It’s impressive how many poems, quotes, anecdotes, and movie references she seamlessly incorporates into this tiny book. I’m drooling at the number of perfectly dosed breadcrumb trails I could follow after reading. Bravo.
I will revisit this in the years to come!
I will revisit this in the years to come!
September 10, 2025
First of all, this book is physically beautiful — fitting I think for what Prior writes about calling as true, beautiful, and good. :)
It’s a helpful, short read on calling, vocation, and passion. Although I got a little distracted by some of the more philosophical paragraphs on the “transcendentals” (the second half of the book) and wished it were a bit more practical, I also appreciated that Prior didn’t make this a “five steps to finding your calling” book - because there’s really no such thing. Ultimately, I took away encouragement that calling can change, calling is external to us rather than coming from inside us (vs “following your passion” - an important distinction!). You can also tell that 1) she was an English professor (lots of literary examples & excerpts to develop her points) and 2) she writes with conviction from her own experiences, both the painful and the joyful. The tone is kind, intelligent, and compelling.
I’ve already recommended it to a few college students, and I think it’d be helpful for anyone who is considering what the heck God wants them to do with their life. ;) I plan to read The Call by Os Guinness next.
It’s a helpful, short read on calling, vocation, and passion. Although I got a little distracted by some of the more philosophical paragraphs on the “transcendentals” (the second half of the book) and wished it were a bit more practical, I also appreciated that Prior didn’t make this a “five steps to finding your calling” book - because there’s really no such thing. Ultimately, I took away encouragement that calling can change, calling is external to us rather than coming from inside us (vs “following your passion” - an important distinction!). You can also tell that 1) she was an English professor (lots of literary examples & excerpts to develop her points) and 2) she writes with conviction from her own experiences, both the painful and the joyful. The tone is kind, intelligent, and compelling.
I’ve already recommended it to a few college students, and I think it’d be helpful for anyone who is considering what the heck God wants them to do with their life. ;) I plan to read The Call by Os Guinness next.
September 15, 2025
I really liked the distinctions between passion, vocation, avocation, etc. Even though I came to this book fairly confident that I have things sorted out as it comes to vocation and calling, there was definitely a time in my life when I didn't, and I wish this book had existed back then. (4.5 stars)
August 17, 2025
As an Evangelical teenager, the idea of finding my calling was daunting — like there were right and wrong decisions about how I should pursue my future plans, like it was necessary to find some assurance of certainty.
But that rigidity is not what characterizes Karen Swallow Prior’s book. I picked this book up because I loved her previous book, the Evangelical Imagination, and because I was curious about her recent career change (she stepped away from serving for decades as English faculty at Liberty University).
She touches upon her personal career shift only briefly (and discretely). Mostly, though, this book is a word study, exploring work and passion, vocation and calling, and the importance of situating it all within the good, the beautiful, and the true (three things that exist in harmony with each other).
I underlined much of this book, but this section particularly resonated with me:
“The thorns, thistles, and labor pains that accompany our work today can take any number of forms. And while too much of a good thing can present its own problems, I think most would agree that scarcity — scarcity of work, opportunities, invitations, clients, money, time — is a weed that often chokes the joy and peace out of life. Sometimes that scarcity is real, very real. But other times it is our fear of scarcity — fear that money, opportunities, relationships, or capacity will be lacking — that drives our decisions, when we should be making choices based on our true calling rather than the fear of missing out.
God calls us to a life of abundance, not scarcity. God’s economy is based on plenitude. If we believe that, accept it, see it, and own it, how different our decisions (and emotional states) might be.”
But that rigidity is not what characterizes Karen Swallow Prior’s book. I picked this book up because I loved her previous book, the Evangelical Imagination, and because I was curious about her recent career change (she stepped away from serving for decades as English faculty at Liberty University).
She touches upon her personal career shift only briefly (and discretely). Mostly, though, this book is a word study, exploring work and passion, vocation and calling, and the importance of situating it all within the good, the beautiful, and the true (three things that exist in harmony with each other).
I underlined much of this book, but this section particularly resonated with me:
“The thorns, thistles, and labor pains that accompany our work today can take any number of forms. And while too much of a good thing can present its own problems, I think most would agree that scarcity — scarcity of work, opportunities, invitations, clients, money, time — is a weed that often chokes the joy and peace out of life. Sometimes that scarcity is real, very real. But other times it is our fear of scarcity — fear that money, opportunities, relationships, or capacity will be lacking — that drives our decisions, when we should be making choices based on our true calling rather than the fear of missing out.
God calls us to a life of abundance, not scarcity. God’s economy is based on plenitude. If we believe that, accept it, see it, and own it, how different our decisions (and emotional states) might be.”
October 28, 2025
4.5 - a good graduation present for someone who is a Christian. Well written. Still trying to find my calling!
December 11, 2025
I've read a lot on the subject of calling, even teaching it in a workshop that I do on purpose and priorities. What I liked about Ms. Prior's book is that it covers the basics in plain, practical language and introduces some additional thinking in the areas of truth, goodness, and beauty. Her references to other resources also are helpful (I read "Death of a Salesman" for the first time after she mentioned it). "You Have a Calling" is not a big book, but it's full of wisdom.
September 9, 2025
This well written book grew out of a talk the author gave in 2021 at an event hosted by the Rabbit Room. The author tells us that she is not going to tell us what our calling is, but hopes that the book will help show us how to discover and fulfill the various callings that unfold throughout our lives.
She tells us that the first calling of every human being is to bear witness to the God who created the world and that we are all called to this work. Work itself is a good that is part of God’s original design and therefore contributes to human flourishing. She writes that while work and calling do overlap at times, they are not the same.
In this book, the author addresses a number of topics, such as work, vocation, calling, passion, desires, hobby, job, limitations, discerning our calling, truth, goodness and beauty. She quotes frequently from other writers, especially poets.
She writes that finding work that aligns with our passions, desires, and gifts is, of course, ideal, but that doesn’t always happen, and that is okay. She tells us that merely having a desire or a passion inside us does not necessarily mean we will receive a call from outside that will fulfill that passion. In fact, being paid to do what you love has, for most of human history, been the exception, not the rule.
She tells us that there is no magical formula or perfect job just waiting for us. Such an understanding encourages us to pursue different interests, develop different skills, and accumulate a range of experiences - and see them all as an ongoing part of pursuing our calling, knowing that God will use it all.
The author tells us that a vocation can be fulfilled in a paid or unpaid position. It might begin as a hobby and then become a job or career – or it might be something we devote our whole lives to and never get paid to do or gain public recognition for doing.
Work is part of what it means to be human and to imitate our Creator through the creative nature of work—can fall into various categories: hobby, job, career, and vocation.
A call requires both a caller and the called. It is not our job to be called. Rather, it is our job to answer the call.
The author tells us that passion is inside and a calling comes from outside. They don’t always entirely coincide. But sometimes they do.
She writes that a view of calling that puts “spiritual” work above other kinds of roles distorts our understanding of both ministry and work. Rather, every Christian is called to “full-time ministry,”
A key point is that vocation is not about being able to fulfill our desires, pursue our passions, or follow our bliss. Vocation is about being called by others to serve. Vocation includes work, but it is more than just a career, job, or source of income. Vocation is one way you fulfill your purpose, the role (or roles) for which you were created.
The author writes that if you pursue truth, goodness, and beauty in all your work, all your play, all your ways, and all your days, you will find your calling.
I found this to be a helpful book about work, vocation and calling.
She tells us that the first calling of every human being is to bear witness to the God who created the world and that we are all called to this work. Work itself is a good that is part of God’s original design and therefore contributes to human flourishing. She writes that while work and calling do overlap at times, they are not the same.
In this book, the author addresses a number of topics, such as work, vocation, calling, passion, desires, hobby, job, limitations, discerning our calling, truth, goodness and beauty. She quotes frequently from other writers, especially poets.
She writes that finding work that aligns with our passions, desires, and gifts is, of course, ideal, but that doesn’t always happen, and that is okay. She tells us that merely having a desire or a passion inside us does not necessarily mean we will receive a call from outside that will fulfill that passion. In fact, being paid to do what you love has, for most of human history, been the exception, not the rule.
She tells us that there is no magical formula or perfect job just waiting for us. Such an understanding encourages us to pursue different interests, develop different skills, and accumulate a range of experiences - and see them all as an ongoing part of pursuing our calling, knowing that God will use it all.
The author tells us that a vocation can be fulfilled in a paid or unpaid position. It might begin as a hobby and then become a job or career – or it might be something we devote our whole lives to and never get paid to do or gain public recognition for doing.
Work is part of what it means to be human and to imitate our Creator through the creative nature of work—can fall into various categories: hobby, job, career, and vocation.
A call requires both a caller and the called. It is not our job to be called. Rather, it is our job to answer the call.
The author tells us that passion is inside and a calling comes from outside. They don’t always entirely coincide. But sometimes they do.
She writes that a view of calling that puts “spiritual” work above other kinds of roles distorts our understanding of both ministry and work. Rather, every Christian is called to “full-time ministry,”
A key point is that vocation is not about being able to fulfill our desires, pursue our passions, or follow our bliss. Vocation is about being called by others to serve. Vocation includes work, but it is more than just a career, job, or source of income. Vocation is one way you fulfill your purpose, the role (or roles) for which you were created.
The author writes that if you pursue truth, goodness, and beauty in all your work, all your play, all your ways, and all your days, you will find your calling.
I found this to be a helpful book about work, vocation and calling.
December 13, 2025
The distinction between Passion and Vocation presented in this work is an absolute gold mine of wisdom for this and every generation.
What KSP shares that is unique from most pieces on vocation and calling is a specific transcendental virtue to vocation. That work is true, beautiful, and good is often lost in our modern culture. Many address vocation with the mindset: if this is something I am not immediately passionate about, it's time to move to what is next. However, the argument that passion is not naturally achieved within vocation but is learned chiefly over time or pursued outside of vocation is cash money. We glorify God through our vocation, whether or not it manifests our passions. To do otherwise is to forgo moments to taste the truth, goodness, and beauty of God in the everyday.
Too much wisdom in too little time to truly digest in one sitting. Absolutely incredible.
What KSP shares that is unique from most pieces on vocation and calling is a specific transcendental virtue to vocation. That work is true, beautiful, and good is often lost in our modern culture. Many address vocation with the mindset: if this is something I am not immediately passionate about, it's time to move to what is next. However, the argument that passion is not naturally achieved within vocation but is learned chiefly over time or pursued outside of vocation is cash money. We glorify God through our vocation, whether or not it manifests our passions. To do otherwise is to forgo moments to taste the truth, goodness, and beauty of God in the everyday.
Too much wisdom in too little time to truly digest in one sitting. Absolutely incredible.
October 17, 2025
In this quick read, Karen Swallow Prior unpacks calling through the lens of what is true, good, and beautiful.
I really enjoyed this book and how Prior broke down different ways we discuss calling/vocation/hobbies and highlighted how our callings can change over the course of our lives. She also demystifies callings and explains that others can help us identify the threads of things we are good at which can help inform what we are called to. The undercurrent in this book is definitely the verse about living the life God assigned to us (1 Corinthians 7:17) and using that life to glorify Him and serve others with our gifts.
I really enjoyed this book and how Prior broke down different ways we discuss calling/vocation/hobbies and highlighted how our callings can change over the course of our lives. She also demystifies callings and explains that others can help us identify the threads of things we are good at which can help inform what we are called to. The undercurrent in this book is definitely the verse about living the life God assigned to us (1 Corinthians 7:17) and using that life to glorify Him and serve others with our gifts.
December 28, 2025
While this book is short and can be read quickly, it is filled with so much wisdom you'll want to slow down and savor it, spending time thinking about all Karen Swallow Prior shares with us - from her research, her personal experiences, literature, and more. She helpfully defines terms like "calling," "vocation," and "work," which we often use interchangeably in our culture, yet there are subtle differences. Not a self-help book or formula for finding your calling, it is so much more, as she encourages us to pursue our callings in truth, goodness, and beauty. After just one reading, I know I'll be revisiting this book again soon to properly focus on all.it has to offer.
September 30, 2025
I have read many books on vocation and theology of work, and Swallow-Prior's latest has become my favorite! By coupling the transcendentals (the good, true, and beautiful) with the concepts of calling and vocation, she casts a compelling and beautiful vision for what work might be for in this world and the next. This is one i'll be sharing with many of my students and colleagues!
August 12, 2025
I have been following Karen and reading her books and articles for about three years now. I have come to discover that Prior’s writing style is to guide her readers to consider her main points without telling them what to do. You Have a Calling is not a “how-to” book. If you are expecting the “Seven Steps to Discover Your Calling Easily,” you will be greatly disappointed. Instead, this book lays the groundwork for the reader to discern for themselves how “calling” takes shape in their lives.
Throughout the book, Prior uses what I have dubbed her “superpower”—her ability to define words and to help the reader understand what she means when she says “you have a calling.” Words like “work,” “passion,” “hobby,” and “vocation” are defined and explained in her unique style of mixing literature, biblical references, and personal experience to help these words make sense within the context of calling. Her chapter on “The Transcendentals” allows the reader to connect with what she means when she links “calling” with “the good, the true, and the beautiful.” She says, “To find and live within your calling is to find and live in truth, goodness, and beauty. At the same time, the reverse is so: we are all called to pursue truth, goodness, and beauty. We are all called to pursue these in all we do and all we are.”
I appreciated that Prior briefly touched on unexpected callings—the circumstances that life brings our way that we are not prepared for or do not want to do, but need to—for example, being called to take care of a loved one who is terminally ill. I found myself wishing that this point was fleshed out more. Admittedly, though, I am wondering if doing that would have interrupted the book’s flow.
The book itself is short, allowing one to read it in a day or two if they desire. It is packed with so much goodness from beginning to end. The chapter on “Beauty” is truly a work of art; it rivals “Empire” in The Evangelical Imagination. In fact, I think it is some of her best written work to date. My favorite parts in “You Have a Calling” are the anecdotes she shares about people's callings. From growing tomatoes to predicting the weather, I was moved to tears by her stories. They added soul to the book. Her use of scripture, too, is spot on. I am proud to add “You Have A Calling” to the list of works by KSP that have positively impacted my life.
Throughout the book, Prior uses what I have dubbed her “superpower”—her ability to define words and to help the reader understand what she means when she says “you have a calling.” Words like “work,” “passion,” “hobby,” and “vocation” are defined and explained in her unique style of mixing literature, biblical references, and personal experience to help these words make sense within the context of calling. Her chapter on “The Transcendentals” allows the reader to connect with what she means when she links “calling” with “the good, the true, and the beautiful.” She says, “To find and live within your calling is to find and live in truth, goodness, and beauty. At the same time, the reverse is so: we are all called to pursue truth, goodness, and beauty. We are all called to pursue these in all we do and all we are.”
I appreciated that Prior briefly touched on unexpected callings—the circumstances that life brings our way that we are not prepared for or do not want to do, but need to—for example, being called to take care of a loved one who is terminally ill. I found myself wishing that this point was fleshed out more. Admittedly, though, I am wondering if doing that would have interrupted the book’s flow.
The book itself is short, allowing one to read it in a day or two if they desire. It is packed with so much goodness from beginning to end. The chapter on “Beauty” is truly a work of art; it rivals “Empire” in The Evangelical Imagination. In fact, I think it is some of her best written work to date. My favorite parts in “You Have a Calling” are the anecdotes she shares about people's callings. From growing tomatoes to predicting the weather, I was moved to tears by her stories. They added soul to the book. Her use of scripture, too, is spot on. I am proud to add “You Have A Calling” to the list of works by KSP that have positively impacted my life.
January 15, 2026
KSP provides wisdom and direction for discerning and pursuing calling, including how to differentiate calling from vocation. However, the book's greatest gift is its discussion of truth, goodness, and beauty and its entreaty to pursue these transcendentals in all aspects of life. I plan to purchase several copies for young people in my life, and I expect it will become a new standard graduation gift.
September 21, 2025
Short, easy read that was a great follow up to Tim Keller’s “Every Good Endeavor”!
January 10, 2026
Dare I say this book is itself true, good, and beautiful?
Read
February 7, 2026Quality, short primer on calling.
Helpful to anyone in a period of thinking through what’s next in life.
Helpful to anyone in a period of thinking through what’s next in life.
January 12, 2026
I enjoyed this book, especially the way Prior presents many types of work as “callings” and the comparison near the end to art - luminosity, proportion and order. I want my life to hold all three of these.
November 20, 2025
Love the concept. I think it is true that as a Christian, we are working towards something better than what we have on this Earth. I think that's the general idea. That are calling relates to something that stirs our heart to eternity. however, it feels very idealistic. I don't know that every person can say they have a calling and be satisfied with that. she is someone who has made a living doing something she loves, which she acknowledges is rare, but it kind of feels like when you get advice from a friend about how to leave an abusive relationship when they have never themselves been in a or known someone who's been an abusive relationship.
That said, the entire time I read this book I just couldn't help but think but what about when you must take a job because it is the only thing offered to you and you must make a living and it's hard and torturous. It feels like a very privileged take on work. maybe I missed something, or maybe that was the point? to find joy and calling in the mundane? I'm not sure. anyway, I thought it was well written and I enjoyed the read, but again, very idealistic.
That said, the entire time I read this book I just couldn't help but think but what about when you must take a job because it is the only thing offered to you and you must make a living and it's hard and torturous. It feels like a very privileged take on work. maybe I missed something, or maybe that was the point? to find joy and calling in the mundane? I'm not sure. anyway, I thought it was well written and I enjoyed the read, but again, very idealistic.
February 23, 2026
Great discussion on calling and vocation for all of God’s people, not just clergy. A lot of good things to think through.
December 16, 2025
KSP is consistently one of my favorite non-fiction authors. I slowly savored this latest one over the course of a couple months.
She is practical, kind, wise, and whip smart. Her academic background is obvious in both her writing style and (meticulous) footnotes—but never at the expense of being inaccessible. What I wouldn’t give to be one of her literature students! This book stoked many rich conversations between my husband and I; my copy is now littered with hilights and pencil notations. (Always a good sign!)
She is practical, kind, wise, and whip smart. Her academic background is obvious in both her writing style and (meticulous) footnotes—but never at the expense of being inaccessible. What I wouldn’t give to be one of her literature students! This book stoked many rich conversations between my husband and I; my copy is now littered with hilights and pencil notations. (Always a good sign!)
November 3, 2025
A lovely read. This was not as pragmatic as I had hoped but perhaps good for a sound, philosophical foundation. The ending sections on the transcendentals: the true, the good, and the beautiful offered the greatest pearls.
August 28, 2025
Karen Swallow Prior gently but firmly releases you from popular but narrow ideas about calling, and instead invites you into a broad, expansive, and flexible understanding of calling. Prior celebrates that "understanding that there is no magical formula or perfect job just waiting for you can be freeing" because "such an understanding encourages you to pursue different interests, develop different skills, and accumulate a range of experiences--and see them as an ongoing part of pursuing your calling, knowing that God will use it all."
It's a beautiful book in which she unselfconsciously dips into her vast knowledge of literature and poetry just as easily as she cites pop psychology books, drawing together these varied sources of wisdom about how we are to approach discerning our call. She understands that our call is in response to the needs around us and is never permanent.
This was a deeply heartening book for me. I've gone through seasons of disorientation about my calling, particularly when I chose to stay home with my kids and felt untethered from my identity as a teacher. I considered becoming a writer, and worked really hard to pursue that calling for several years, all the while wondering if I would be called back into the classroom instead. For me, if my calling is going to take me from my family, it is going to have to make me some money. I couldn't afford to invest time and money in a hobby like writing that didn't contribute to our family's income. I was deeply jealous of women who could afford to hire childcare so they could write, or who could afford to take classes that helped further their writing career. (My husband used to try to find ways to give me more time to write, and I did write a LOT for a couple years there.) I couldn't seem to get traction without more time to write or more connections with people willing to promote my writing. Not only that, but I began to realize that teaching had been (and now has continued to be) a source of joy whereas writing was becoming a source of insecurity and anxiety. When I was really trying to turn writing into a money-making endeavor, I felt like I had joined a pyramid scheme in which I had to suck up to and promote the work of those with slightly better careers in writing, and I had to cultivate friendships with my peers or those who had less influence than me in the hopes that they would "like" and "share" my writing. All of this took me away from the kinds of writing I wanted to produce and created pressure to write quantity instead of quality. At the same time, I was recognizing that there was a surfeit of white, midwestern, Christian women who all felt called to write. I began to wonder if the world really needed one more writer in that space, particularly since I was not all that theologically trained.
All that to say, I began to ask questions like "What do my neighbors need?" instead of "What am I really passionate about doing?" and realized that while my community DID need teachers willing to cultivate the skills of younger writers, my community really did NOT need more short, personal essays written by amateurs.
Prior's book, then, delivered the great and very freeing affirmation I needed that my calling will continue to grow and change, that nothing I pursue with passion and for God's glory will be wasted, and that I don't need to justify or explain my calling to anyone else. Instead, I can accept the unique pressures and invitations of my life as appropriate borders within which to pursue my calling.
This is a lovely, meandering book that commends to you the life of pursuing beauty, truth, and goodness.
It's a beautiful book in which she unselfconsciously dips into her vast knowledge of literature and poetry just as easily as she cites pop psychology books, drawing together these varied sources of wisdom about how we are to approach discerning our call. She understands that our call is in response to the needs around us and is never permanent.
This was a deeply heartening book for me. I've gone through seasons of disorientation about my calling, particularly when I chose to stay home with my kids and felt untethered from my identity as a teacher. I considered becoming a writer, and worked really hard to pursue that calling for several years, all the while wondering if I would be called back into the classroom instead. For me, if my calling is going to take me from my family, it is going to have to make me some money. I couldn't afford to invest time and money in a hobby like writing that didn't contribute to our family's income. I was deeply jealous of women who could afford to hire childcare so they could write, or who could afford to take classes that helped further their writing career. (My husband used to try to find ways to give me more time to write, and I did write a LOT for a couple years there.) I couldn't seem to get traction without more time to write or more connections with people willing to promote my writing. Not only that, but I began to realize that teaching had been (and now has continued to be) a source of joy whereas writing was becoming a source of insecurity and anxiety. When I was really trying to turn writing into a money-making endeavor, I felt like I had joined a pyramid scheme in which I had to suck up to and promote the work of those with slightly better careers in writing, and I had to cultivate friendships with my peers or those who had less influence than me in the hopes that they would "like" and "share" my writing. All of this took me away from the kinds of writing I wanted to produce and created pressure to write quantity instead of quality. At the same time, I was recognizing that there was a surfeit of white, midwestern, Christian women who all felt called to write. I began to wonder if the world really needed one more writer in that space, particularly since I was not all that theologically trained.
All that to say, I began to ask questions like "What do my neighbors need?" instead of "What am I really passionate about doing?" and realized that while my community DID need teachers willing to cultivate the skills of younger writers, my community really did NOT need more short, personal essays written by amateurs.
Prior's book, then, delivered the great and very freeing affirmation I needed that my calling will continue to grow and change, that nothing I pursue with passion and for God's glory will be wasted, and that I don't need to justify or explain my calling to anyone else. Instead, I can accept the unique pressures and invitations of my life as appropriate borders within which to pursue my calling.
This is a lovely, meandering book that commends to you the life of pursuing beauty, truth, and goodness.
October 7, 2025
Karen Swallow Prior's You Have a Calling is an excellent little book. If you are picking up the book for a formula or "how to" guide to choosing a career, you have picked up the wrong book. If you want something wise, thoughtful, and elegant, that will force you to think about life more than about yourself, this is the right book.
I have not read a wide array of similar books, so I cannot speak to how novel the book is, but I appreciated her focus on the philosophical life. Instead of worrying about passion, Prior focuses on our calling to glorify God by using our gifts well and in his service. Whether those gifts earn us a living is a separate question.
Prior tells of two figures that reflect good and bad approaches to calling. Her mother taught for her entire life, but never for a job. She taught Sunday School, mentored others, and worked to provide supplies to kids who needed them for learning. Her vocation was teaching, but it was never her job. By focusing on service to others, her mother was a quiet force for good wherever she was.
The other story she recounts is of Willie Loman from Death of a Salesman. Loman lived for the wrong reasons, to achieve goals disconnected from his gifts. He was convinced that being likable and popular would lead to influence and success because that was the path that others took. He would have been more useful, more fulfilled, and lived more of a life of integrity, had he worked with his hands. By focusing on prestige, influence, and wealth, Loman missed his calling.
I regularly have to remind myself of my good fortune. I struggled for about 8 years to work through what I was doing with my life. I thought that I wanted to teach, but there was a series of setbacks, a furious bout of doubts, and then the crushing possibility of earning multiple degrees but never finding a full time job. In retrospect, it all makes sense, but it never felt easy or right in the moment.
I have often told current and former students that I do not envy their lives in most ways. They are walking into a complex and fluid economy and culture. They have gifts, but are unsure of how they fit into a reality that is difficult to understand. Prior's book is one I will recommend. It will frustrate those looking for something practical, but it might also deepen the approach of those willing to be patient and trusting. By leaning away from "how do I find a job?" and leaning into, "how can I live a good life?", Prior leads people to the right place, but right and easy are vastly different things.
I have not read a wide array of similar books, so I cannot speak to how novel the book is, but I appreciated her focus on the philosophical life. Instead of worrying about passion, Prior focuses on our calling to glorify God by using our gifts well and in his service. Whether those gifts earn us a living is a separate question.
Prior tells of two figures that reflect good and bad approaches to calling. Her mother taught for her entire life, but never for a job. She taught Sunday School, mentored others, and worked to provide supplies to kids who needed them for learning. Her vocation was teaching, but it was never her job. By focusing on service to others, her mother was a quiet force for good wherever she was.
The other story she recounts is of Willie Loman from Death of a Salesman. Loman lived for the wrong reasons, to achieve goals disconnected from his gifts. He was convinced that being likable and popular would lead to influence and success because that was the path that others took. He would have been more useful, more fulfilled, and lived more of a life of integrity, had he worked with his hands. By focusing on prestige, influence, and wealth, Loman missed his calling.
I regularly have to remind myself of my good fortune. I struggled for about 8 years to work through what I was doing with my life. I thought that I wanted to teach, but there was a series of setbacks, a furious bout of doubts, and then the crushing possibility of earning multiple degrees but never finding a full time job. In retrospect, it all makes sense, but it never felt easy or right in the moment.
I have often told current and former students that I do not envy their lives in most ways. They are walking into a complex and fluid economy and culture. They have gifts, but are unsure of how they fit into a reality that is difficult to understand. Prior's book is one I will recommend. It will frustrate those looking for something practical, but it might also deepen the approach of those willing to be patient and trusting. By leaning away from "how do I find a job?" and leaning into, "how can I live a good life?", Prior leads people to the right place, but right and easy are vastly different things.
December 19, 2025
This small, reflective book explores the topic of vocation and calling. Karen Swallow Prior writes from her experience as a college literature professor and writer who has encountered many students who agonized over the concept of calling. This book demystifies the concept. Prior helps readers see that there are lots of ways to fulfill God's calling on your life, in both paid and unpaid work, without the pressure of trying to find a single dream job that fulfills all your aspirations and brings meaning to your life.
Prior explores different ideas about passion and calling, offering helpful paradigm shifts. For example, she writes about how people may have different callings throughout their lives, and that it is okay to pivot towards new things, instead of feeling like one particular job is your calling forever. She also writes about ways that someone may follow a single vocation through multiple settings and avenues, and she draws on the Bible, historical Christian writings, and literary references to illustrate and support her points.
All throughout this book, she gently nudges her readers away from myths about calling that cause people undue stress and discouragement, and she shares real-life examples from her own and others' lives. She addresses both general cultural myths and struggles that are more specific to Christians, such as devaluing work that isn't in a traditional ministry context, and she encourages readers to have a more expansive view of God's work in their lives and the world. Prior also reflects on ways that a person's everyday work can reflect "the true, good, and beautiful," even when their job isn't what they aspired to.
You Have a Calling will appeal to fans of the author, and to people who are looking for a refreshing, different look at work and vocation. This will be especially encouraging for new graduates who are approaching big career decisions, as well as people who are considering mid-career pivots. However, this is definitely a big idea book, not a practical guide. If someone is looking for pragmatic guidance for finding their calling or navigating the complexities of modern work, this book can give them some important foundational ideas, but they will want to look elsewhere for a more practical roadmap.
I received a free copy from the publisher, and am voluntarily leaving an honest review.
Prior explores different ideas about passion and calling, offering helpful paradigm shifts. For example, she writes about how people may have different callings throughout their lives, and that it is okay to pivot towards new things, instead of feeling like one particular job is your calling forever. She also writes about ways that someone may follow a single vocation through multiple settings and avenues, and she draws on the Bible, historical Christian writings, and literary references to illustrate and support her points.
All throughout this book, she gently nudges her readers away from myths about calling that cause people undue stress and discouragement, and she shares real-life examples from her own and others' lives. She addresses both general cultural myths and struggles that are more specific to Christians, such as devaluing work that isn't in a traditional ministry context, and she encourages readers to have a more expansive view of God's work in their lives and the world. Prior also reflects on ways that a person's everyday work can reflect "the true, good, and beautiful," even when their job isn't what they aspired to.
You Have a Calling will appeal to fans of the author, and to people who are looking for a refreshing, different look at work and vocation. This will be especially encouraging for new graduates who are approaching big career decisions, as well as people who are considering mid-career pivots. However, this is definitely a big idea book, not a practical guide. If someone is looking for pragmatic guidance for finding their calling or navigating the complexities of modern work, this book can give them some important foundational ideas, but they will want to look elsewhere for a more practical roadmap.
I received a free copy from the publisher, and am voluntarily leaving an honest review.
September 8, 2025
You Have a Calling is a valuable guide for anyone seeking to understand their vocation or calling, regardless of their life stage. Whether you’re a young person starting your career, a middle-aged individual looking to pursue a passion, or a retiree seeking a new purpose, this book offers helpful guidance.
The author, a long-time professor, has extensive experience counseling students and parents on this topic. Instead of providing a rigid checklist, she offers guideposts to help readers find their way.
In the first part of the book, Prior defines work, vocation, and calling. She emphasizes that “work is good though often hard” and that our passions may not always be our paid jobs; they can also be hobbies or ministries. She explains that a vocation is something more profound than work—it is a response to a calling. These callings can change, end, or take on different forms, and new ones can emerge throughout our lives.
The second part of the book shifts focus to how the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty can help us find our calling. Prior describes these as Transcendentals—universal properties of being that are also qualities of God. She argues that they cannot exist apart from one another.
The author dedicates a chapter to each of these qualities, with a particularly compelling discussion of beauty. Prior notes that while our culture often discusses truth and goodness, beauty is frequently considered "peripheral, unimportant, and optional." Yet, as she argues, "aesthetic experience is central to
our very humanity, to the image of God in us.”
Ultimately, Prior’s core message is a powerful one: “I believe that if you pursue truth, goodness and beauty in all your work, all your play, all your ways and all you days, you will find your calling.” This book is a highly recommended read for anyone on a journey of discernment.
The author, a long-time professor, has extensive experience counseling students and parents on this topic. Instead of providing a rigid checklist, she offers guideposts to help readers find their way.
In the first part of the book, Prior defines work, vocation, and calling. She emphasizes that “work is good though often hard” and that our passions may not always be our paid jobs; they can also be hobbies or ministries. She explains that a vocation is something more profound than work—it is a response to a calling. These callings can change, end, or take on different forms, and new ones can emerge throughout our lives.
The second part of the book shifts focus to how the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty can help us find our calling. Prior describes these as Transcendentals—universal properties of being that are also qualities of God. She argues that they cannot exist apart from one another.
The author dedicates a chapter to each of these qualities, with a particularly compelling discussion of beauty. Prior notes that while our culture often discusses truth and goodness, beauty is frequently considered "peripheral, unimportant, and optional." Yet, as she argues, "aesthetic experience is central to
our very humanity, to the image of God in us.”
Ultimately, Prior’s core message is a powerful one: “I believe that if you pursue truth, goodness and beauty in all your work, all your play, all your ways and all you days, you will find your calling.” This book is a highly recommended read for anyone on a journey of discernment.
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