What do you call the work you’re given?
I found myself the other day searching for a word. A single word to describe the work I do to help others live life well. The word “business,” didn’t seem right. I thought about “ministry,” but that seemed limiting. I wanted it to feel more considerable than “hobby” and more external than “personal development.”
Then, I thought about the word “vocation,” but that felt antiqued. Then I thought about “calling,” which felt more aligned but too abstract for everyday use. “Hey! I’ll buzz you back when I get done with my calling.” I kept tossing words back and forth in my mind, but nothing seemed to fit perfectly.
Turns out, what I was trying to do was more than labeling what I do. I was trying to define a whole domain of life – one that spans occupation, spirituality, service, passion, and purpose. And that’s when it hit me; how much we compartmentalize life and try to define it in slices.
Career or occupation → what pays the bills
Hobby → what we enjoy
Spirituality → what nurtures our inner life; connects us to the divine
Service → How we help others
Personal development → how we become “better”
Think about it like this. We promote our careers but privatize spirituality. Often, we see service as something we do with the time we have left. Our hobbies become serious when we figure out how to monetize them. This is the modern world. Let me add, the Western modern world.
In fact, other cultures have names for this kind of work. Work that connects the many facets of our lives – both the outward and inner; work that fuels and enlivens us, serves and supports others, and adds more goodness, truth, and beauty into the word.
In German, there’s beruf, a word that combines work and calling. In Hebrew, avodah means work, service, and worship. In Japanese, ikigai points to the intersection of purpose, skills, contribution, and joy. And in West Africa, words like nyama (Mande people) and nkrabea (Akan people) refer to the life-force or purpose in one’s work and communal contribution.
These words recognize what modern English struggles to capture: a life lived faithfully stewarding one’s gifts that serves others and gives meaning to the work and the worker.
In the end, I decided on a simple word: work. Not because it captures everything, but because I’m choosing to reclaim it. “Work” is not just about productivity or performance, transactions or obligations. After all, in Genesis we see that work was given as a good thing; an invitation to participate in the creative work God began in the very beginning.
Maybe the point isn’t to name our lives perfectly, but to live them faithfully – recognizing that the fullness of life will always be bigger than language.
