Called to Serve

When considering a call to ordination, the word discernment is difficult to embody. Defined as “a prayerful process of seeking God’s will in the midst of moral, spiritual, or deeply personal decisions,” discernment often feels cloaked in mystery.

But using the word availability changes how I think about it. Too often I want discernment to be a clear answer: Tell me what path to take, Lord. Give me certainty. Reality suggests something quieter: God doesn’t hand us a fixed plan so much as an invitation to be present—here and now—to whoever or whatever is placed before us.

I’ve wrestled with this myself. For years I asked whether I was “called” to a particular role, to a holy collar, to an office. I wanted a sign in bold print. But again and again, the real work of discernment was simpler: Am I willing to serve? Am I willing to let go of my demand for clarity, and make myself available?

Availability rarely looks heroic. It usually looks ordinary—showing up in the kitchen that feeds the hungry, sitting in silence with someone who is dying, writing words that might carry a trace of hope. But what looks ordinary often costs the most, because it requires us to surrender control and wait for grace to move.

Discernment, then, isn’t about cracking a secret code. It’s about posture. It’s about keeping hands open instead of clenched, stepping forward in service even when the path isn’t obvious.

Frederick Buechner wrote, “The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” I believe that hunger is for Christ’s presence in the flesh—lived out, carried gently, made visible.

That’s a good reminder for me today. My deep gladness is not to predict the future, but to be present. To be available.