Bootstrap wrote:If you have a job, do you see it as "just a job", a career, or a calling? How does your job relate to your Christian discipleship and calling? How does your job relate to your family?
For me, this has varied throughout life. As a young man, my work was "just a job" and I longed for something with more meaning to it. I ended up teaching in several Christian schools for five years (over a period of 7 years). I would have considered that a "calling" probably, and for a while I thought I would make it a career as well, but it didn't work out that way. When I worked for Rod and Staff, I felt that I had found my life's calling by making Christian publishing my career. Then God took that away from me, and I went completely into secular work in a corporate setting. Then that was taken away from me as well.
Now I'm working half time for CAM and half time as a free lance writer. I'm not so sure anymore about the labels we give to things. I'm at the point where I view my calling as doing as good a job as I can in whatever God brings my way. I need to support my family. At this point that means that I can't go into full time writing. Is writing my calling? Is my work for CAM my calling? I rather like how the Message puts Ecc. 9:10...
Ecc 9:10 Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily! This is your last and only chance at it.
It is God's will for us to work. It is God's will that we serve Him. If I end up serving coffee at Tim Hortons, or cleaning floors at Walmart, I can accept it as my calling from God for the moment. Or I would try to, anyway. It can sound a lot easier than it actually is.
[bible]col 3,22-24[/bible]