You Don't Have to Be Full Time to Be Fully Called.

What if the season you are in right now is not the waiting room for your calling but your actual calling?

I have been sitting with that question for a while. And I think a lot of us have been sitting with it too even if we have not said it out loud.

The lie we all believe

Nobody actually says it directly. I have never had someone walk up to me and say hey if you do not have a publishing deal you are not really a musician. But the feeling is there. It is underneath everything.

If I do not have the publishing deal or the record deal or the charting song on CCLI then I am not really full time. And if I am not full time then I am just a hobbyist. And if I am just a hobbyist then I am an imposter waiting to be found out.

That is the lie. And the enemy is very good at whispering it.

The truth is that everyone's path is different. If we sat down with every single person who got the publishing deal or the charting song we would find that their paths are all wildly different. There is no single road to those things. And more importantly those things do not determine the calling.

A calling is a calling regardless of a job title.

When get to becomes have to

I had a season where I was completely dependent on music for income. Production, songwriting, hosting retreats, coaching, all of it. And I am genuinely grateful for that season. It taught me something I could not have learned any other way.

When your bills depend on your ability to create, it changes the dynamic.

It changes from a get to into a have to. And when creativity becomes a have to the whole relationship with the calling shifts. There were stretches where I had not created anything of my own in a long time because all my creative energy was going toward the job aspect of it.

That is not a failure. It is just reality. And it is one of the reasons I do not believe full time is automatically the goal for everyone.

You are already in it

Earlier this year I sent an email to my list and the Called to Music community sharing that I was stepping back into creating content and the podcast. Within minutes the responses started coming in from all over. Canada, the UK, all over the US and beyond.

Worship leaders who had been writing songs for years but felt like they did not have permission to call themselves songwriters. Producers grinding away wondering if anyone would even notice if they stopped. People who felt stuck in a season they assumed was just a waiting room.

And what struck me over and over again is this. The waiting room is not the waiting room. You are already in it.

When you are doing it you are already in it. You do not have to achieve the next level to validate the calling you are already living.

Paul made tents. David kept sheep. Peter caught fish.

We do not have to look far in scripture to see that God has never required full time status before calling someone.

Paul's occupation was making tents. His calling was to write a significant portion of the New Testament and share the gospel across the known world. Those are not the same thing. And God did not wait for Paul to quit tent making before He used him.

David wrote more than half the Psalms. He wrote them while he was still a shepherd. A shepherd by occupation. Called to music as his calling.

Peter was a fisherman. Jesus called him to become a fisher of men, he walked alongside Jesus, he preached, he led. And then he went back to fishing. Because in that second season of fishing there was an eternal value behind it that the first season did not have.

God did not wait for any of them to be in the ideal situation. He called them from wherever they were. And He does the same thing for us.

Your calling is not on hold until your income catches up.

Your calling was never really about you anyway

Here is the pastoral truth underneath all of this.

Your calling was never really about you in the first place.

Every song you write, every song you produce, every song you lead or release, the intention behind all of it is to share God's love through its power. That is the point. And what does that have to do with being full time? Honestly nothing.

The freedom does not come from the income model. The freedom comes from understanding that the calling is never in the income. The calling is from God.

So here is your permission.

You are called to music whether you are receiving a full time paycheck, a part time paycheck, a stipend, or no money at all. That has nothing to do with it. The part time worship leader, the hobbyist songwriter, the bedroom producer. All of those are real lanes in a real calling for a real God.

That is who this podcast and community is for. Not everyone who receives a paycheck for music. Not everyone who has a charting song. Everyone called to music.

If you needed someone to say that to you today, I hope this is it.

Watch the full episode on YouTube: [link]

Join the Called to Music community on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/calledtomusic