Hey Reader,

If you're new here — welcome. My name is Marcus Mok, a teacher and Christian blogger from Singapore who writes about calling, vocation, and what it looks like to live faithfully in the work God has given you. Glad you're on this list.

If you've been here since January — thank you for your patience. It's been a quieter five months than I intended.

Here's the honest update.

At the start of the year I wrote about stepping down from my senior teacher role — a $2,000 monthly pay cut, a deliberate choice to create margin for what I believed God was calling me toward. Part of what I was hoping for was a new assignment. A secondment opportunity that would take my work in a new direction. I applied. I waited. And eventually it became clear, through silence more than any formal response, that the door wasn't opening.

No dramatic rejection. Just a quiet closing.

I'd be lying if I said I took it entirely in stride. There's something particularly disorienting about a door that closes without explanation — you're left wondering whether you misread the situation, overestimated yourself, or simply got the timing wrong.

But I've been sitting with a passage that keeps reorienting me.

In 1 Corinthians 7:17, Paul writes: "Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them."

The context is surprisingly mundane — Paul is addressing questions about marriage, circumcision, social status. And his answer, essentially, is: where you are is not an obstacle to faithfulness. It is the place of faithfulness.

That's quietly radical. We tend to think of our current situation as the waiting room — the place we pass through on the way to where we're really meant to be. Paul seems to suggest something else entirely: that the call isn't waiting for you somewhere ahead. It meets you where you are, in the assignment already in front of you.

I'm a classroom teacher. That's where I am. And I'm learning — slowly, not always willingly — that this is not a consolation prize. It's the assignment.

The students in front of me, the subject I teach, the colleagues I work alongside — these are not placeholders for something more significant. They are the work. They are where faithfulness happens.

I don't write this as someone who has fully settled into that conviction. I write it as someone still learning to mean it.

But I think that's the point Paul is making. Faithfulness in your current assignment isn't something you achieve after you've made peace with it. It's the daily practice of showing up as though the work in front of you matters — because it does.

Whatever door you're waiting on, or grieving, or quietly wondering about — I hope this is useful.

Let's go forth and embrace our calling.

Marcus

p.s. What does faithfulness look like in your current assignment — even if it's not where you hoped to be? Hit reply. I'd genuinely love to hear.

p.p.s. If you're wrestling with closed doors and God's timing, I did a whole podcast episode on this last year — exploring the space between readiness and opportunity, and what it means to keep walking in faith when access to your calling feels blocked. Give it a listen here.

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Let's go forth and embrace our calling!

Marcus Mok Christian. Teacher. Blogger. ​EmbraceOurCalling.com​

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