Your calling isn’t something to chase. It’s something to cultivate.

Culture treats purpose like a destination you eventually arrive at. Scripture treats it like a field you tend every single day. Most people aren’t stuck because they lack a calling. They’re stuck because they’re waiting to feel ready. Waiting for a bigger platform, more clarity, the perfect thing. Putting out their fleece over and over again like Gideon, doing everything except being faithful with what’s already in their hands.

Stewarding your calling starts right where you are, with what you already have. Spoiler alert: the best time to start was yesterday. The next best time is right now.

And as always, don’t take my word for it. Take everything to God. I’m a crazy blue-haired chick with a bachelor’s degree and a lot of opinions, and I could absolutely be wrong. Pray for discernment, especially when it comes to your calling.

The Parable of the Talents: What We Actually Get Wrong

We’re starting with a hefty passage today. Matthew 25:14-30 (ESV). Bear with me, it’s worth it.

“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money.

Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’

And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’

He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant!… Take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.’”

Okay. This is a hard one. Let’s talk about what’s actually happening here.

It Isn’t Equal

The master doesn’t distribute the talents equally. He distributes them according to each servant’s ability. God isn’t asking you to carry someone else’s assignment. He’s asking you to be faithful with yours. The two faithful servants are praised identically, even though their outputs are totally different. The measure isn’t how much. It’s whether you used what you were given.

The servant who buries his talent isn’t condemned for failing. He’s condemned for not trying. Fear is what kept him from faithfulness.

And the phrase “faithful over a little” is the key to the whole thing. God’s pattern is to expand what has already been stewarded well. That’s not a prosperity gospel take. That’s just how the parable works. If you’re sitting here feeling empty, like you can’t do it, like you don’t have enough, you are essentially telling God he’s wrong. That he made a mistake. And God doesn’t make mistakes.

You Were Made for This

Ephesians 2:10:

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

The Greek word used here for workmanship is poiema, the same root as the word poem. You are God’s crafted work, made with intention and purpose, not assembled by accident.

Jeremiah 29:11:

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

This verse was written to people in exile. People who felt displaced, purposeless, and forgotten. God’s word to them wasn’t vague optimism. It was a grounded declaration: I haven’t lost the thread of your story.

Romans 11:29:

“For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”

This is a guardrail against the lie that you’ve missed your calling or disqualified yourself from it. What God gives and calls, he does not revoke. The good works Paul talks about in Ephesians 2 aren’t things we generate from our own ambition. They were prepared before we were ever created. Our role is to walk in them, not manufacture them.

You are not searching for your calling the way you search for lost keys. You’re uncovering something that was built into you before you were born. The question isn’t whether you have a calling. The question is whether you’re paying attention to it and walking in it with what you currently have.

Questions to sit with:

• Are you seeing your gifts and abilities as yours, or as something entrusted to you by God?
• Have you been waiting for a calling to appear, or have you opened your eyes to see that the calling is already present and simply needs to be cultivated?

Use Your Gifts Faithfully, Not Fearfully

Matthew 25:25:

“So I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.”

The third servant’s problem wasn’t lack of talent. It was fear. He misread the character of his master and buried what he was given rather than risk it. Fear dressed up as caution is still fear.

1 Peter 4:10:

“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.”

This verse frames gifts as stewardship, not ownership. You are a manager of something God placed in you, not the originator. That reframes both pride and fear. The gift isn’t yours to hoard or to boast about.

Romans 12:6:

“Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.”

Not let us think about them. Not let us put them away for later. Let us use them, in proportion to our faith. You don’t need complete certainty before you begin. You just need enough faith to take the next step.

Fear becomes your Idol

I’m going to be honest: fear of failure, fear of comparison, fear of being seen, these are the exact reasons I haven’t always done what God called me to. This isn’t coming from a place of having it figured out – I’m a mess. But when I get into the Word and actually read it, it’s so hard to ignore. I’m literally idolizing my own fear over the Word of the Lord. That’s what burying a talent looks like in real life.

The gift doesn’t grow while you’re hiding it. It grows through use.

Questions to sit with:

• Is fear of failure, judgment, or being wrong keeping you from using what God has given you?
• What would it look like to take one faithful step with your gifts this week, even if you don’t feel fully ready?

Obedience Over Opportunity

Luke 16:10:

“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.”

The culture around calling is heavily opportunity-driven. People wait for the right door, the right platform, the right season. But Jesus’ model is obedience, period. Faithfulness in the small thing is what produces the larger assignment.

Your character in small things is the same character that will show up in large things. There is no separate version of you that arrives once the opportunity is bigger.

Proverbs 16:9:

“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”

This verse holds planning and trust together. God honors intentionality, but reserves the right to redirect the outcome. Obedience means showing up to what is in front of you and trusting him with where it leads.

Matthew 25:21:

“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much.”

The assignment you have right now, however small it feels, is preparing you for the one you’re praying for. Obedience isn’t glamorous. It’s a mess sometimes. But it’s consistent. It’s doing the thing faithfully whether anyone is watching or not.

Chasing opportunity can actually become a way of avoiding the faithfulness that’s required right now.

Questions to sit with:

• Are you being faithful in the small assignments currently in your hands, or are you focused on the bigger platform you don’t yet have?
• Is there an area where you’ve been waiting for an opportunity when God is actually calling it obedience?

Don’t Despise Small Beginnings

Zechariah 4:10:

“For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice.”

This was written to people looking at the foundation of a rebuilt temple and feeling discouraged because it looked so small compared to what had been before. God’s response was essentially: don’t despise this. Pay attention to it.

Luke 19:17:

“Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.”

The reward for faithfulness in a very little is not a gold star. It’s expanded authority and responsibility. Faithfulness is the training ground, not the consolation prize.

Matthew 25:29:

“For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

There is no staying the same. Faithfulness with what you have produces more. Unfaithfulness with what you have results in loss. Despising small beginnings is one of the most common ways people stall in their calling.

The early, unglamorous, unseeable work is not a waiting room. It is the work.

What you are faithful with right now is shaping who you will be when the larger assignment comes.

Questions to sit with:

• Are you despising the smallness of where you are, or are you being faithful inside it?
• What’s one area of your calling that you’ve been neglecting because it feels too small to matter?

Your calling isn’t somewhere out ahead of you, waiting to be found. It’s already in your hands, in your gifts, in the assignments God has placed in front of you today. The invitation of the parable of the talents is not to do more. It’s to be faithful with what you already have. Use your gifts. Show up consistently. Trust God with the growth.

One day, the words you’re living toward will come: well done, good and faithful servant.

A Prayer to Close

Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word and for the opportunity to sit in it together. I pray that You give us the courage to use our gifts without fear of failure or comparison. Help us to remove everything that isn’t of You and lean into what You’ve called us to. Give us wisdom to see the calling that’s already present in our hands. Help us to stop waiting and start being faithful in the small, unglamorous, daily assignments, so that we’re ready for the bigger things. Help us to trust that You’re going to expand what we steward with integrity. Move over everyone reading this, Lord. Touch them. Help them to connect with You and love You and lean on You through it all. Thank You for all You’ve done, all You’re doing, and all You will do. In Jesus’ name, amen.

If this episode hit something in you and you’re ready to stop waiting and start walking in what God’s called you to, come do it in community. The STWRD Collective is a membership for Christian women who are stewarding their calling, their lives, their households, all of it, better together. There is something that happens when women come together, get obedient, and follow God. I believe that with everything in me. Come find out.

Find me on Instagram at @karleighwalkswithjesus or reach out at karleighwalkswithjesus@gmail.com.

I love you. God loves you. Now go use what’s already in your hands.

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