Archive for the ‘Vocation’ Category
Monday, October 15th, 2007
As I mentioned in the previous post, Christian vocation is not just about a career, it’s about God’s will for our entire lives. When we are born, we are automatically put into a vocation. We are children of our parents, and if we have any brothers or sister we are siblings. What does it mean to have the vocation of child or sibling? The vocation of child is put forth by the Fourth Commandment, “Honor your father and your mother.” The vocation of sibling has more in common with our other vocations and comes from Christ’s command to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Our neighbor would be our siblings in this instance. As we grow older, we are naturally put into new vocations like student, friend, roommate, worker, citizen, spouse, parent, driver, etc. Pretty much anything we do is a vocation which falls under Christ’s command to love your neighbor as yourself.
Okay, we’ve established that we’re supposed to do everything in our lives with love for our neighbor (yes, even driving in traffic). The caveat is that we all know that we don’t come close to being loving in all aspects of our lives (just ask my wife about my driving). So we rely on the salvation that Christ bought for us on the cross and do our best to love our neighbor in gratitude for that salvation.
So that leaves us as both saints and sinners relying on Christ for our salvation. But that doesn’t tell us what job we should take or how to put food on the table. Since the Bible doesn’t say, “Thou shalt be a fireman” we have freedom in what may become. Still sounds like a bit of a dodge? Without a clear word from God, anything I say is just my opinion, but here goes…
I think that how we show love to our neighbor can expose our interests and talents and lead us to specific job choices. For example, when I was in junior high and practicing my vocation as a student, we had a science fair. My teacher and I decided that based on my talents and interests I would write a simple video game and that was the humble beginnings of my career in software development.
Showing love for your neighbor may not always lead you where you want to go, but often leads you where God wants you to be. My college choice was a classic example of this. I got accepted to RPI under my second choice of majors and told my dad that I’d go there if they let me in under my first choice. I was all set to go to San Jose St. assuming that they wouldn’t bump me into my choice of majors. Needless to say, they did and I felt obligated to honor my father and do what I said I would. I really wanted to just stay near home and hang with people I knew. However, in the course of honoring my commitment to my dad, I had the best experience I could have had in college. I made lots of mistakes there and I learned a lot and I know it had a profound effect on who I am today.
Based on these examples, it might seem like I’m saying that following your vocation is the path to worldly success. That is not my point at all, I’m simply trying to point out how my career developed based on the vocation of student and child. In my next post, I’ll explore how following your vocation can negative worldly impact and how not following your vocation can have both positive and negative impacts.
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Wednesday, October 10th, 2007
Marc Andreessen is a very successful technologist and entrepreneur. He created the Mosaic web browser which became the foundation for Netscape Communications, the poster child for the dot-com boom (and bust). He recently wrote a series of columns about career planning that is targeted but not specific to high-tech. I would like to compare and contrast this “career guide” with how you might approach your career with an understanding of Christian vocation.
First, I want to set the context of the two approaches. Marc Andreessen readily admits that his guide is for people looking to make a significant impact on their fields and the world. His approach is not for those looking for work/life balance. Christian vocation says that God has placed us where we are so we can serve people out of love for Him. This approach doesn’t specifically try to balance work/life, but simply submits to God’s will.
Rule 1: Do not plan your career
The Andreessen approach is to not plan because you don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. Planning your career will only limit you because you don’t know what companies, industries, roles, etc. will be opened to you.
Christian vocation would say not to plan your career either. Trust in God, and serve peoples as they are presented to you. Look at Joseph, he didn’t have a career plan but ended up 2nd to Pharaoh by serving his neighbors.
Rule 2: Instead of planning your career, focus on developing skills and pursuing opportunities
Instead of planning your career, the Andreessen approach says to look for, pursue, and create opportunities. Then take the opportunities and develop a portfolio of skills and roles. The opportunities presented may appear to be risky, but if they lead you to a more well developed set of skills it may be less risky when looking at the big picture.
Focus on serving people would be the equivalent from the perspective of Christian vocation. Opportunities to grow will present themselves as God continues to place people in your life who you can serve.
And on and on…
At this point, the analysis starts to become repetitive. Andreessen gives various tips and pointers for navigating college, your first job, where, to live, what industry to pick, etc. And Christian vocation responds with, “trust in God.” Our sinful nature doesn’t want to trust God and we believe we can do a better job of picking our career path.
So, how does one follow the concepts of Christian vocation in a real career? Well, I’ll walk through my career in the next couple of posts and see where I have and haven’t followed these principles and the outcomes in each case.
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Friday, February 16th, 2007
As my family and friends probably know, I’ve always been kind of a self-improvement junkie. Trying to be better at whatever I’m interested in. Most recently, my search for self-improvement lead me to ask, “What does God want me to do?” I had some stops and starts when I thought God was giving me “signs”, but I never felt like I was doing God’s will. This kind of thinking along with hearing a few times how the Bible is “God’s owner’s manual for us” clicked in me because somewhere inside I knew Christianity was more than this. Since then, I have fallen back to my Lutheran roots and come to recognize that Christianity is about my sin and Jesus’ saving work on the cross, NOT God’s right rules for living.
So, how has this helped me figure out what God wants me to do? The Lutheran doctrine of vocation is simply: God has put you where you are to live in faith toward Him and in love toward your neighbor. I found a very simple to read and practical article called “Locus and Focus: God’s Will for Your Daily Life.” Two sections that made me see more clearly:
Why do we agonize so much over God’s will? Isn’t it because we secretly think that it is up to us to please God with our own good works? But nothing could be further from the truth. It isn’t up to you to please God. This is what Grace is all about. God is already pleased with you because of Jesus’ good works, Jesus’ perfect obedience and Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus did all of this for you. In fact, God couldn’t be more pleased with you than He already is for Jesus’ sake.
But no, instead of seeing the will of God right there under my nose, in the needs of my wife, kids, family co-workers, I speculate about God’s will, I invent things to do that I think would please God. These self-invented works, no matter how much good they might do, are not good works at all. They haven’t come from faith in what Jesus has done for me to please God, but from a futile attempt to please God myself.
The above passages tell me there is nothing for me to do to please God because Jesus has already done so, but they still don’t tell me how I should act. Here’s the passage that does that:
When a Christian wants to know what God’s will is, he need look no further than to his station in life and his neighbor’s needs. This is enough to keep the Christian busy for the rest of his life. The Christian is free to turn his attention to his neighbor because the Christian no longer needs to worry about pleasing God.
We are saved because of Jesus not because of what we do, and in gratitude we help our neighbors. And where we see our neighbor in need, we see what God wants us to do.
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