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Are Your ‘Job’ and ‘Calling’ the Same?

Orginally published on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 at 8:28 AM
by Todd Rhoades

Dan Miller of 48Days.com asks some important questions that everyone in church ministry should be asking:  Could you tell me what success means for you this year? Are you where you thought you?d be at this stage of your life? Have you ever had a sense of "calling" in your life? How did you hear that calling? Is your work a fulfillment of your "calling?" Do you go home at night with a sense of meaning, purpose and accomplishment?…

St Augustine said: "To work is to pray." God established work before the fall. God placed the first humans in the garden to "tend and keep it." This work assignment was given before sin entered the world and God pronounced the curse.

God blesses work even after the fall. If work were evil, God would never encourage people to engage in it. In Colossians 3:23 we are told to "work hard and cheerfully at all you do, just as though you were working for the Lord and not merely for your masters (bosses)." (LB)

God expected us to enjoy our work! Even Solomon in his most pessimistic moments realized this. "That everyone may? find satisfaction in all his toil ? this is the gift of God." (Ecc. 3:13) Work that fulfills our "calling" will be energizing and uplifting.

God is saving the greatest rewards for eternity ? and work will be among them. Surprise! The saved will "build houses", "plant vineyards", and shall "long enjoy the work of their hands." (Isaiah 65:17-25)

Thank God It?s Friday relays a secular work ethic. For the Christian, work should be meaningful and an expression of who we are. It has been said that the true measure of a person is not what he does on Sunday, but who he is Monday through Saturday, and that includes what we do in our work.

There are 3 components that must be blended in our work in order for it to be an expression of our calling. (Keep in mind, your goal is to develop a strategic life plan, not just a career path.)

Skills and Abilities (What)

The most common mistake people make in choosing a career is to do something simply because they are good at it. Remembering the happiest times in your life and the times when you felt most fulfilled are better indicators of your calling than just knowing what you have the ability to do. You must have the ability, but that?s only one component.

Personality Traits (How)

How do you relate to other people, projects, and ideas? Are you analytical and logical, or expressive and outgoing? Are you nurturing, supportive and encouraging or do you thrive when you are working on a project in isolation? There is no "right" or "wrong" here, but understanding your uniqueness will help identify the best environment.

Values, Dreams and Passions (Why)

Are you motivated by the constant search for new knowledge? Are you moved by beauty in nature and your surroundings? What are you drawn to even when money is not an issue? What is it that when you are doing it, time just flies by? What God calls us to do does not stamp out who we are. Look for moments of being in the zone, like an excellent athlete. Remember Eric Liddle, who when challenged to come back and do missionary work rather than run competitively, said: "God made me fast and when I run, I feel His pleasure." (From the movie, Chariots of Fire.)

Knowing these 3 areas about oneself leads to a sense of continuity. These components are relatively changeless; however the career application can change multiple times. Knowing that the average job is about 3.2 years in length, it is not even appropriate to try to identify the "right" job. Rather, we need to get a broader sense of the role work plays in a balanced and meaningful life. A critical issue is to distinguish between the following terms:

1. Vocation ? from the Latin vocare, which means "to call"

This is the big picture; the most profound. Vocation must incorporate "calling," "purpose," "mission" and "destiny." It?s what you?re doing in life that makes a difference, that builds meaning for you, and that you can look back on in your later years to see the impact you?ve made on the world.

2. Career ? "to run or move at full speed, rush wildly. "Careen"

"Career" comes from the Latin word for "cart" and later from the Middle French word for "racetrack." In other words, you can go around and around really fast for a long time but never get anywhere. That?s why in today?s volatile work environment, even professionals with careers like physicians, attorneys, CPAs, dentists and pastors may choose to get off the expected track and choose another career. A career is a line of work, but it?s not necessarily your calling. You can have different careers at different points in your life that all support your "calling".

3. Job -- one?s daily activities

A job is the most specific and immediate of the three terms. It has to do with one?s daily activities that produce an income or a paycheck. The dictionary defines "job" as "a lump portion, a task, chore or duty." In today?s workplace, the average person will have 14-16 different jobs in his/her lifetime. Thus the job surely cannot be the critical definition of one?s calling or vocation. However, the job should in fact be an expression of that calling and an integration of one?s ministry.

Here?s a worthy goal:

"The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both." James Michener.

You can read the entire article now at Crosswalk.com.

For discussion:  Could you tell me what success means for you this year? Are you where you thought you?d be at this stage of your life? Have you ever had a sense of "calling" in your life? How did you hear that calling? Is your work a fulfillment of your "calling?" Do you go home at night with a sense of meaning, purpose and accomplishment?


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 TRACKBACKS: (0) There are 13 Comments:

  • Posted by
    Tuesday, September 20, 2005 at 12:28 PM

    I am blessed to be able to have work that correlates with my calling.  I am the Director of the Academic Skills Center at a Christian college in Florida.  I oversee the tutors and the writing center, as well as help students see how what they are studying could feed into their God-given purpose.  I also teach a few classes there.  When I saw the position, I knew that this was what would bring together my calling to work with youth, some of my spiritual gifts which include teaching and exhortation, and my desire to give back to others what has been given to me.

    Not everyone is so blessed in this area, often because they don’t believe that they should be.  I remember doing a workshop as a Career Counselor (my previous job) on the fact that God has created us a certain way, which may contriubute to what He might want us to do for a living, and I encountered many Christians who felt that they should be miserable in their work, and that this is what God meant when the Bible said to “endure hardness,” or that we should “do everything as unto the Lord,” even if we hate it.  True, there are some things that we will have to do that we don’t like, but since we spend the majority of our lives at work, I sincerely believe that God would have us do something that lines up with the way he created us.  What is wrong with us that we think God wants us to be miserable in order to prove our devotion to Him?

  • Posted by
    Tuesday, September 20, 2005 at 3:57 PM

    I retired a bit over three years ago after a career in various executive roles with small and mid-sized companies.  Oddly, I had assumed that at some point my career (racetrack) would take form along the lines of my education (BA- Religion, Graduate work- Biblical lit. and language), but it never did. Now after spending several months each year with my wife aboard our sailboat, and writing articles for a sailing magazine something quite unique has happened.  I found myself remarkably at ease with the rhythyms of God’s grace.  Moreover, as I’ve looked back across my life (and racetrack), the clear imprint of God’s fingprints can easily be seen in every feature and upon the people who lived and worked beside me.  Then one morning last autumn, while reading the Bible and sipping a cup of Earl Grey, God stirred.  Two days later He spoke, and today I’m working on a doctorate in worship studies, with concentration upon the Catechumenate (how people become and form as Christians), a subject that has held great importance to my life/work as a Christian, and about which I am profoundly impassioned.

    Calling: Isn’t that really a matter of relating to Jesus Christ as He relates with us (John 15)?  If so, then all of life is an expression of how that relationship is developing.

  • Posted by LW
    Tuesday, September 20, 2005 at 7:30 PM

    When I was a child,the first thing I ever wanted to be was a teacher.  I wanted to please my parents and become a nurse.  My dedication to being a mother and a good wife side tracked my nursing career. During the course of a marriage going downhill to an unfaithful husband, I was blessed with the job of a bus operator in NYCTA/MaBSTOA. But before all of this amazing walk with God I was saved and it has been about twenty eight years.  “In Him we live and move and have our being.” I did not hide my faith or love of the Lord and being a child of God from anyone. God blessed me with an apartment directly across from my parents home and where I grew up. Witnessing with my born again transformation of my mind has become an integral part of my life that I know keeps me strong.  I drove a NYC bus, and delivered USPS mail and now I have been teaching second grade going on six years at the NYCDOE.  Praise and thankyou and magnify heavenly Father, Jesus,Holy Spirit; Bleesed Trinity.

  • Posted by
    Tuesday, September 20, 2005 at 9:13 PM

    How true this has become in my life!  Like any little boy, I always wanted to be either a fireman or policeman.  As I grew up, I wanted to become rich and famous - mainly to escape my hometown and the “little thinkers” who live there still.  Now I’m forty-four and, for the first time in my life, I am exactly in the plan God has for me.  Oh sure, I was a cop, then a soldier, and a variety of other things.  But my life has prepared me to teach others.  Now I teach middle school in a private Christian school.  Perfect!  Did I ever dream I would be doing this?  No way - I don’t even have any kids of my own.  But God, who is rich in mercy, has guided me here and, though my pay is nowhere near what I would like, I am satisfied deep in my soul.  Plus, it’s only one step from here to my ultimate dream!  In His mercy, God has been patient.  In His grace, He has been my covering.  In His time, I will be all He has for me.  Bless His holy name!!!!!

  • Posted by
    Wednesday, September 21, 2005 at 10:45 AM

    Success for me this year would be to totally find where my “place” is and to serve there. my “job” is just that a tiresome case of running at flaming hoops and trying to put out the next fire, all the wile, happy to have a “job” but hating what i do. I"ve been trying to get connected in my Christian “Call” for a long time but, GOD seems to either be saying “No’ or at least “ NOt YET” in either event I just get up every day and go through the motions of life not quite ever senseing fullfillment.

  • Posted by
    Wednesday, September 21, 2005 at 12:27 PM

    Since retiring as a Naval submarine officer, my personal experience has been a struggle of personally coming to terms with the difficult universal calling to follow Christ.

    This article represents a sophisticated way of sanctifying our own pursuit of the American dream. The pursuit of happiness is a quest for self-fulfillment. The author of this article says, “What God calls us to do does not stamp out who we are.” My question for the author is, what did Jesus mean when he said … “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”? (Luke 9:23) How does he reconcile such a self-serving idea with biblical truth? 

    I served the nation for 20 years defending the ideals behind the American founding documents.  The naked fact is that the pursuit of happiness ususally leads people away from God.  A biblically sound understanding of vocation must acknowledge and incorporate the necessity of self-denial.  If we have a valid personal subjective calling from God, it must complement the objective universal call to Christian discipleship, not subvert it.

    If you would gain Christ, die to yourself.

  • Posted by Marc
    Thursday, September 22, 2005 at 5:22 AM

    Success for me will be finding a workplace that is in line with what I can an can not do and what is in line with call and ministry....

    But that is only on the soul level… my real and highest goal is: WALKING IN THE WILL OF FATHER GOD, JESUS MESSIAH AND HOLY SPIRIT BY GRACE!

  • Posted by Marc
    Thursday, September 22, 2005 at 5:24 AM

    O boy my commend was give to Kevin, I hope you do not mind bro.... but It was not i but the computer system who did it!

    Success for me will be finding a workplace that is in line with what I can an can not do and what is in line with call and ministry....

    But that is only on the soul level… my real and highest goal is: WALKING IN THE WILL OF FATHER GOD, JESUS MESSIAH AND HOLY SPIRIT BY GRACE!

  • Posted by
    Saturday, September 24, 2005 at 9:05 PM

    The turning point in my life occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. On Sept 10 I had begun studies at a Bible college, thinking one term… I was feeling spiritually dry and needed to heal from a family tragedy. I had sold my great business to help with the situation and was at loose ends when it resolved months later. I was scheduled to begin a job as a marketing rep for a fortune 500 corporation on Sept 12. On Sept. 11 I found myself( along with the rest of us) stunned by what I was seeing and felt compelled to go visit a couple of the widows in the congregation where I worshipped. (Our pastor was on the other side of the country). The very next day I quit the job I hadn’t started yet. I began a music ministry to nursing homes, returned to my abandoned nursing career (this time in long term care and burnt out fast). I was led by “divine” accident to a Clinical Pastoral Education program. Since then I have graduated from Bible college and am now working as a chaplain in nursing homes.
    along with leading contemporary worship in my home church (and anywhere else they’ll have me!) and singing hymns in the nursing home!
    I am not a kid...I am 51 years old...and after quitting a 30 year smoking habit 252 days ago...the Lord has really ramped up the activity in the diverse ministry He has blessed me with...including restoring my voice and my health!
    Glory to God! Yes...my job is now my call but first and foremost I was called to obedience. By myself I have no power to do anything and I thank Him for turning it on and lighting me up! I say “Ladies and gentlemen, keep your arms and legs in the car until the ride comes to a complete stop. What an adventure! Life...it’s a calling.

  • Posted by
    Monday, September 26, 2005 at 11:25 AM

    Since I was a teenager I have experienced the “hounding of heaven” or call to devote my life to the service of God. I have been involved in many areas of ministry over the years; youth work, music, prison and hospital visitations, working with addicts and their families and also in a more structured way as a Parish Assistant and Layreader. This work was all done on a volunteer or part time basis and it was a constant struggle to make ends meet. I always wanted to be doing ministry on a full time basis, that was where my heart was. At one point I considered becoming ordained but this aspect of ministry didn’t seem to fit my gifts or personailty.

    For twenty years I had asked God,” Lord, what is it that you would have me do?” At one point, I strongly believed that it was teaching in a secular school and so I went back to university as a mature student and got a degree in Education. When I graduated there were very few jobs where I live and for for two years I worked at a number of different jobs in order to survive. Again, I asked, “ Lord what would you have me do?” Just when I felt I would never find the answer it came in a most surprising way. I was doing a short term placement as a fundraiser at a youth centre and when the placement ended I was asked to stay on as a mentor and family resource person. Within a year, I was applying for and working as the Director. That was six years ago and I feel so blessed to be doing what I love. I am able to work with children , youth and their families. They come to us from different cultures and backgrounds and I get use all my gifts of music, counselling and teaching. God has surpassed even my expectations. The pay is adequate but knowing that I am serving God and making a difference in this world is the greatest reward of all. Every year there is some discussion as to whether the church that funds this program will continue because of financial issues and the thoughts of this breaks my heart but I know that if He closes a door he will open a new one and so I remain a trusting servant.

  • Posted by
    Monday, October 03, 2005 at 10:29 AM

    I have been in ministry for over 25 years. I have served as a Senior Pastor, a Chaplain in the U.S. Navy, a college professor in the religion department, and now back to office hours in a local church as a Pastoral Counselor.  Some would say, “grow up and find something you can stick with.” I have, I stick with Jesus and his right to place me wherever He desires. I love to preach, teach, counsel, and serve God’s people.  I have discovered that we need to keep our tent pegs in loose, and be willing to go when God says go. “You did not choose me, I choose you and called you to bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” John 15:15. WOW what a ride and it is not over yet. Never focus on one particular area of ministry, focus on Jesus and He will direct your path; always.

  • Posted by
    Monday, October 03, 2005 at 10:29 AM

    I have been in ministry for over 25 years. I have served as a Senior Pastor, a Chaplain in the U.S. Navy, a college professor in the religion department, and now back to office hours in a local church as a Pastoral Counselor.  Some would say, “grow up and find something you can stick with.” I have, I stick with Jesus and his right to place me wherever He desires. I love to preach, teach, counsel, and serve God’s people.  I have discovered that we need to keep our tent pegs in loose, and be willing to go when God says go. “You did not choose me, I choose you and called you to bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” John 15:16. WOW what a ride and it is not over yet. Never focus on one particular area of ministry, focus on Jesus and He will direct your path; always.

  • Posted by Terri Renfro
    Monday, October 03, 2005 at 1:55 PM

    Like the post before mine, our ministry experience is very diverse.  My husband and I are currently ministers to Hollywood.  This is what we refer to as our present “assignment”.  If one looks at our journey in ministry which spans nearly 30 years, an age demographic from preschool through adults and the types of ministry which, between us, involve some aspect of most of the gifts of the Spirit, and many types of communications within the different ministries, one would really wonder what our calling is!  Our ACT International President, Byron Spradlin, helped us clarify our calling and the Lord gave me a mental picture to make this even clearer.  We previously looked at the pieces of our puzzle to find the clarity we thought we needed. Since it was so diverse, we were often confused.  What we came to realize through our friend/mentor’s wise counsel and God’s gracious gift of the picture is our calling is to Christ Himself.  The mental picture was this… Remember those computer generated images which are made up of different individual pictures but when you step back you see something different?  When we look at the tiny pictures, we see radio ministry, music ministry, to artists, to media people, to children, to postmoderns/next generations, etc. etc.  When we step back we see Jesus!  This has helped us immensely when our job doesn’t match our calling but we are still ministering with every spare moment.  We now are free to move faithfully into what God lays before us without the pressure of striving to figure out how it fits.  So far it all displays a very creative plan from a very creative God in a very changing time.  In it all we see Jesus.

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