Life & Wisdom Quote by Jim Wallis

Public office gets rebranded here not as ambition but as vocation, a sly rhetorical pivot that tries to launder politics through the language of faith. Wallis frames the most modern, résumé-driven question - "What am I supposed to do?" - as spiritual discernment, then offers an answer that dignifies governance as something like ministry. The phrase "can be a divine calling" is doing careful work: it’s conditional enough to avoid sanctifying every careerist with a campaign logo, but reverent enough to confer moral seriousness on a choice many voters treat with reflexive suspicion.

The subtext is both pastoral and political. Pastoral, because Wallis is speaking to seekers: people who want their lives to add up to more than personal success. Political, because he’s also defending a contested idea in American culture: that religion belongs in the public square without collapsing into theocracy. By calling running for office "public office" twice, he widens the frame from partisan combat to civic duty. It’s a linguistic attempt to move politics out of the mud and back into the realm of service.

"I've wrestled with that very question myself" is the credibility move. Wallis isn’t presenting a slogan; he’s narrating a struggle, implying humility and conscience rather than certainty. In an era when candidates market themselves as destiny’s chosen, Wallis’s emphasis on wrestling suggests the opposite: that true calling is uncomfortable, morally demanding, and never fully settled.