Blog 3716 – 01.13.2026

My Calling

I spent several years as a young man believing that I was “called” to preach the Christian gospel. I even went to Bible College to study and prepare for the Christian Ministry. Alas, eventually I came to realize that I had misheard my true calling. Years before I thought I was called to preach I thought that perhaps I had been called to teach. I even sought and was granted a three month “early out” from active duty military service to attended a university and pursue degree in elementary education, the end goal being to become an elementary public school teacher. Alas, I was quickly distracted from that noble goal.

Preceding both of those misheard callings in Junior High School typing class I began to see myself a writer someday. There are several scenes in Clint Eastwood’s iconic western, Unforgiven, also starring Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman, where an Eastern dime-store novelist who is out west looking for interesting characters to write about is asked about his profession and announces proudly that he is a writer to which more than one cowboy inquisitor responds with the same follow up question: “Letters and such?” forcing the dime-store novelist to clarify: “No, I am a writer of books.”

Most writers dream of writing the Great American Novel and of being read and remembered like an Ernest Hemingway, F. Scot Fitzgerald, or even a Michael Crighton, or James Patterson. Alas, for every writer who writes a best seller and becomes widely known there are thousands who never become widely read or known.

Some years ago I read one man’s account of why he thought the Beatles became one of the most widely known and successful rock ‘n roll bands ever. He explained that starting out mostly unknown to anyone outside their home town of Liverpool, England the guys had a long running gig in Hamburg, Germany in a club where instead of the two or three twenty-minute sets that most musicians played nightly they performed eight hour sets daily for months on end. In the writer’s opinion this explains their incredible harmonies for he went on to say that the old adage “practice makes perfect” is a bit off, that it is performance than makes perfect and that the secret to being expert or world-class at anything is to put in ten-thousand hours doing it.

Want to be a great singer? Perform ten-thousand hours. Another old adage comes to mind: “Those who can’t do, teach.” Many who give up on their dream or fail to answer their true calling settle for being coaches and teachers when even the best coaches and teachers are former players who retire after achieving success in their fields of endeavors, with a desire to share what they have learned along the way. Experience is the best qualification for teaching.

Eleven years ago I launched through Word Press this daily blog at the domain:

http://www.theencouragingword.co

I am over one third of the way toward achieving my goal of writing ten-thousand blogs. Spending one hour a day writing has already made me a better writer than I was ten years ago. Trying to write something  entertaining, enlightening, and encouraging everyday keeps me reaching deeper and higher as I pursue this my true calling.

Someone has said that only published writers have the right to call themselves writers. These days with Social Media and the Internet everyone has the ability to self-publish and grow their own audience.

As a justification for its existence the Bible College that I attended in my misspent youth quoted the scripture: 

Modern translations use Be diligent instead of Study to begin that verse. The context itself proves this a better word choice as Study cannot show one a workman only working can do that just as studying singing or even teaching singing does not show one a singer only singing can do thing.

I recall one famous writer’s advice to would-be writers: “If you can do any else, do that.” That is the way with all true callings when we finally hear and answer them, we find that we can no longer do anything else for this is what we were made to do.

Your friend, fellow traveler, and writer for better or worse,

David James White