TH&TH: Being Realistic

Discerning between a calling to a vocation and a preference

I once heard a pastor say that if you desire to get married then you are not called to celibacy. I think that is a very wrong way of thinking that has led many unmarried people feeling that their lives are wasted and they missed their calling. The real problem is that everyone desires to get married but very few people desire to be married.

A calling is not a feeling or a preference. Sometimes it can overlap with a preference, but every calling is a type of cross, and no one should choose a cross because they think the view might be better from that high in the air or because they’ve always thought it’d be fun to take a trip to the Holy Land.

Imagine if a man was interviewing to be a police officer and the interviewer asked him why he wanted the job, and he replied “Because the uniforms are cool and I get to carry a gun.” This is evidence that the man obviously has not thought enough about the weight of the task, and that, at least right now, he is not the man for the job. Many people think about vocations in the same way. I’m sure this is true of monastic life (“they’re just saying cool prayers and chillin with the boys) and the priesthood (vestments and vibes), but I’m most aware of this problem when it comes to the vocation of marriage.

The reasons men often get married are just as simplistic as our would-be policeman. They want someone to talk to, they want a best friend, they want an outlet for their sexual urges, they want emotional security, they want a relationship like the movies, or saddest of all, they want their lives to begin.

Now obviously this comes from our culture and it comes from the various ways our society has damaged the proper reverence for marriage. But it has also damaged, more than anything else, a sense of the purpose for marriage.

Marriage is meant to make us saints.

A vocation is different than an occupation. An occupation is what you do, a vocation is what you are. I am objectively, in the eyes of God, a husband. I can always get a new job but I can’t go get a new wife or a new vocation—it is truly a life sentence, in the sense that only through death that a married person be called to another vocation. Since I am a husband, I am not a celibate. I too have taken vows, but mine are very different than those who have entered the priesthood or the monastery.

These initial essays will be heavily focused on counting the cost and examining yourself to see if you are called to the vocation of marriage. To some extent, this can’t be known for sure until you have a real opportunity to enter into marriage, but having a clear sense of what you’re made for does impact many of your choices and actions on a day-to-day level in significant ways.

But before we get to all that, we first need to stop and get a clear picture of the current landscape.

Many people spend their lives waiting to get married and don’t. Many people get married and wish they hadn’t.

Take stock of the people around you. For the unhappily-unmarried you know, do you think they could be doing something more profitable with their lives, and that they are spinning their wheels, wasting time focusing on something they hope to have in the future instead of on the present? Do you think they missed other trains or opportunities because they spent their lives waiting for their “I’m going to see about a girl” moment?

And for the unhappily married, what were they like before they married? Did they take singleness seriously? What about the path to marriage? Did they have two sessions of pre-marital counseling and then call it good?

This may seem bleak, and it isn’t meant to be. But, just as Jesus asks, what man, before he builds a tower, does not count the cost? Before we choose a vocation, we need to have a deep awareness of what cross we are preparing to be nailed to.

Because there is no vocation without a cross. Even if you talk to those of us with truly happy marriages, there are always other crosses which make family life challenging: financial problems, fertility problems, family problems, parenting disagreements, helping children with health or developmental issues, shame for past parenting mistakes, shame for the financial condition your family is in…and the list goes on. These things are aspects of the cross of marriage which every married couple signs up for, even if they don’t personally have to endure each and every one of them.

If you find it hard to pray now, just imagine doing it while a baby is crying. If you find it hard to find peace in your heart now, imagine trying to find it when you’ve left late for your road trip because your oldest couldn’t find her shoes, everyone is complaining about being hungry, the check engine light in your minivan just came on, and then you hear the sound of one of your kids throwing up in the back seat. These moments can truly become a deep source of joy and laughter, but it takes holy hard work. It takes learning to kiss and embrace the cross, like we do on Good Friday.

So instead of waiting, start becoming a saint now. Many people carry the cross of the vocation of singleness their whole lives, strive to carry it as best as you can for the season you’re called to it, whether that’s for a year or a lifetime. If you can’t find contentment where you are, you will never find it anywhere else.

The pursuit of contentment begins with spiritual discipline. However, many people are simply told to pray when even the disciples needed to be taught. Learning to pray shouldn’t go without saying.

But fortunately there are countless devotions and tools for learning to pray and I will introduce you to the ones I am familiar with in the upcoming entries in this series.

The reason you want to figure this out now is because you need to pray (obviously). But more specifically because prayer allows you to begin discerning the will of God and to understand yourself better. It also will help you establish healthy habits, and it is much easier to sustain a good habit than it is to start one. And if you find it difficult to pray daily now, visualize yourself trying to do it while a baby is crying and then you’ll get the picture of why starting now is so important.

An encouraging word

My wife is my best friend. I love my kids more than life itself. It really is possible, even in our culture, to find this kind of life. These hard words are not to discourage you from pursuing marriage, they are meant to help balance you as you discern which vocation you are called to. It is not pessimistic to refer to marriage as a cross, because as we all know, that simply means that there is a transformation that comes through dying to yourself. It’s only in laying down his life that a husband can find it again. But when he does, he receives it back in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, and put into his lap (sometimes with a dirty diaper).