I’m going to tell you a secret. God doesn’t care what you do for a living.  Which is good…because I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

I am around high school kids every single day. They are on the verge of discovery as the venture into the world. They are chasing their dreams and their hopes and their vocation.  And often (which basically means every day) I look at them and realize that I have been out of high school for 15 years and still don’t really know what I want to do when I grow up.

I have dreams and hopes and desires that I have never achieved.  And I know that whatever I am doing now, it’s only for a season until I find my true purpose.

I can’t help myself.  I fall into the temptation that America throws at us.  I swallow the lie that the world sells us.

We are what we do for a living.

Think about how we introduce ourselves.  Hello, my name is Erick, and I am a teacher.  My name is Bob and I am mechanic.  My name is Kristine and I am a writer.  Our occupation becomes a piece of our identity.

It’s probably because we spend so much of our time doing our job.  Most of our day is devoted to it.  It is the cause of much our stress.  It is the reason we set an alarm in the morning, the reason we have two cars in the garage, the reason we live where we live, the reason we have 5 suits hanging in the closet and our bathing suit is folded up in the far corner of the dresser.  Our jobs define our days, our weeks, our years, our lives..

But, I think we have missed something.  I think that we have confused occupation with vocation.  We have confused what we do on an every day basis with the life that we were called to lead.  Let’s look at Colossians 3:17, “Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Have you ever noticed that the Bible doesn’t tell you what to do with your life.  It’s not a road map or a get rich quick book.  It doesn’t tell you where to go to school.  It doesn’t tell you who to marry.  It doesn’t tell you where to live.  It doesn’t even tell you what career you should pick.

I do believe that giftedness varies from person to person.  Paul is very clear in Romans 12 that there are many parts of the body and that everyone has different talents and abilities and will serve a different purpose.

But, just because we have a certain talents that can edify the body does not mean that our occupations will always fully utilize those talents.  The problem is that we all have Disney movies in our heads…if we can dream it we can do it and wishing on stars and all of that stuff.

That’s not reality.  Sometimes we have to do what we have to do.  Sometimes we don’t like our jobs but we have to do them anyway.

It is in these moments that we have to remember that our true vocation is to live every day for the glory of God in the name of Christ.  No matter what we do, we are called to do it in love and humility.  That is our vocation. That is who we are.

I am talking to myself…

Every day I wonder if I am doing the right thing, if i am in the right place, working the right job, with the right people.  I search job boards looking for the next big thing, knowing that happiness is somehow connected with how I spend 8-10 hours a day.  I am consumed by occupation and I have missed the point.

We have such a small glimpse of Jesus’ life in the gospels.  And think we often forget that he actually lived an incredibly humble life.  He built tables and chairs and buildings for most of his life.  Then, for his last 3 years he wandered the wilderness with no home or place to lay his head (Luke 9:58) and spoke, sometimes to large crowds, but mostly to a group of rejects that had left their occupations to become nomadic hippies.  Yet, he never mentions occupation.  He never tells us what to be.  He never tells us to strive for success.  He never tells Peter that he is wasting his talents because he is only a fisherman.

We have added that narrative.  We have adopted the Puritan ideals of hard work and achievement.  We have woven American bootstraps and Jesus into some kind of twisted relationship.  Therefore, we question occupation and stress over our career because we have a deep yearning for worldly achievement despite the fact that Jesus tells us very clearly that this world is fleeting (Matt 6:20).

Again, I am talking to myself…

I know the world is fleeting.  I know that we are not citizens of this place.  Yet I still click the LinkedIn jobs tab every single day.  I can’t help it.  I still believe in my core that my occupation defines me.

What if we could flip the script?  What if we actually thought of ourselves the way God calls us to think of ourselves? What if we could redefine success?

Here is the truth.  Your job title doesn’t matter.  The way you treat your boss does.  Your career path doesn’t matter.  The way you love your coworkers does.  Your success is not relevant.  Your humility is.  Your bank account does not matter.  Your generosity does.  The size of your house doesn’t matter.  Your hospitality does.

In the modern evangelical tradition it is common to hear the phrase, “If it is Your will, let me…fill in the blank.” For some reason we have convinced ourselves that God’s will is a mystery when in fact it is rather obvious. God’s will is that we would love each other and act humbly and mercifully.  Everything is rather insignificant compared to that.

But we don’t like that.  We like to pray for direction and expect God to drop a roadmap in our lap.  In actuality, our prayer should be, “Let me be a model of all you are in everything I do.”  We should pray that we would be his vessel no matter what the circumstance and that he would show us how to be more like him…garbage man or CEO, homeless or Hamptons.

I believe that God can use me where I am and that my path has molded me and shaped me into the person I am. But I also think I could have picked a different major, chosen a different career, married a different woman, and still lived within the will of God as long as I did so humbly and mercifully with love for those around me.  That is God’s will and that is my vocation.

You see, our vocation and our occupation are not one and the same.  We are children of God, called to live like Christ.  That is our life’s work.  We are called to be humble servants of all.  That is success…unselfishly giving your best no matter the circumstance.

Maybe we should change the way we introduce ourselves:   My name is Bob, I love people.  My name is Kristine, I strive to be humble.  My name is Roger, I am generous.  My name is Beth, I forgive my enemies.   My name is Erick, I follow Jesus.