The following Vocare spiritual practice is featured in Church Anew’s Lent in a Box for 2023 and was developed by Rev. Dr. Charlene Rachuy Cox as part of the Nourishing Vocation Project of The Lutheran Center at St. Olaf College. We will be offering one piece of the Vocare practice each week. 

Vocare is an ongoing spiritual practice designed to help you discern and embrace your various callings so that you can more intentionally live life on purpose for the common good. 

Through guided reflection on personal life experiences via the lenses of values, openness, call, attentiveness, regrets, and experiences of God’s presence, the Vocare practice nourishes discernment of three primary questions. Who am I called to be? What am I called to do? Why am I here?

Vocare Practice: Called to Values

You are invited to focus on your own values. 

Values are the things that we most hold dear, those principles or commitments that guide how we think, what we believe, and how we act. Values can be both tangible and intangible. They can be consciously present in our actions, and they can contribute unconscious influence upon our choices. 

Considering personal values with intention helps us to name what our values really are and to determine if what we aspire to value is actually demonstrated in our everyday lives. Use the time between the following guided questions for your own reflection and meditation. Bring to mind an experience from your own life when you had to choose between conflicting values. Is this a value-centered choice that has been resolved, or is it a value-centered choice that is unresolved? How has this particular experience of value-centeredness shaped your life and its horizons?

Reflect upon your values

• What do I value?

• How have I lived my values today?

• How have my values been in conflict today?

• What do I need for tomorrow?

Prayer

Lead me by your Spirit, O God, to value what you value. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Check out our Instagram reel for a video version of this reflection.