Vocation vs. Careerism
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the
Garden of Eden to till it and keep it.”
Genesis 2:15
A past edition of my college’s yearly magazine was completely dedicated to the theme of Christian vocation. This is a timely topic. My generation seems to care deeply about doing meaningful work (whatever that means) almost to the point of paranoia. However, no matter how old you are, I believe we have all had a job at some point when we’ve asked ourselves, “Is this it? Can't I make a bigger difference doing something else?”
In many ways, we have lost the sense that work itself is meaningful. There may be jobs or certain duties that we must do for a season of our life that do not interest us that much. Some may be more engaging than others, but there is deep anxiety for many that they are wasting their lives doing one particular job or another.
I’ve had conversations with some of my friends who have this fear that they aren’t doing exactly what God called them to do right now. They are anxious that life is short and so they must do meaningful work, however, they define that. This all plays into our culture, which is obsessed with careerism and “going up the corporate ladder.”
Yet, where does the Christian understanding of vocation fit in all of this? How does God want us to understand the work we do on a given day, whether we feel it is meaningful or not?
Dr. Ivy George, a sociology professor from Gordon College, says this, “We tend to refer to career and vocation interchangeably, and that is understandable in our highly goal-oriented view of our place in the world. But the English vocation, of course, is rooted in the Latin vocatio, a divine summons to a particular state, or a state of perpetual gratitude.”[i]
This is a significant shift for those of us who think with a career mentality. God’s call on our life, and our vocation, may not be the particular job that we are doing right now, but the state in which we do that job. We are all called to live our lives filled with gratitude towards God who loves us and calls us to share that love with others. There is no doubt that the job we have is important, but for God, our mindset and intention behind the work may be more important than the job itself.
Living in a state of gratitude brings a different sense of meaningfulness to the table. It is not subject to our whims and feelings on a given day, but rather, living in that state can transform us and the work we do.[ii]
[i] Spring 2019 issue of STILLPOINT, the magazine of Gordon College.
[ii] A longer version of this article was published on 9/7/19 at wesleyarning.com.
