Job/Career/Calling

2 Thessalonians 3:11, “For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies.”

I don’t know about you, but even at 48 years old I still sometimes confuse and congeal job, career, and calling all into a single task or profession for myself. But reality is they are most often three very separate things there to meet three very separate though interrelated needs.

But before I explore this further let’s look at the terms briefly for the purpose of defining them. When I say a job, this means a task accomplished easily within a person’s skill set for compensation but that is not attached to any degree of permanency. Think of a side job, or perhaps a first job, or summer job, or even volunteer job. Whereas a career is a reoccurring task that requires a refined, and perhaps even rare or rarer skill set that is transportable from local to local. A career is that thing that provides some degree of job security. My career is mortgage banking. The Apostle Paul’s career was tent making. Christ career was a carpenter. Calling on the other hand, may include a job or a career, but is the purpose God has for us on this earth. We are all called to minister to God, but some are called to Pastor. Some are called to parent. Sometimes my calling gives me the job of writing this blog. Sometimes my calling finds me in my career of mortgages as I help random strangers who bring their financial troubles to me.

If we look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs jobs provide the lowest level of physiological needs. Careers provide only slightly more my giving of the safety of the second level. But I believe it is in responding to our calling that the remainders of these needs are met.

Why am I having this discussion with myself?

Because the understanding of these critical differences and the separations of their roles need to be addressed particularly as much as my mind has distorted these things.

I hate my job.

How many have said that?

I wish I knew what I was supposed to do… or be… or I wish I could do…

How many have said that?

Are you tired of a “dead end” job, or “meaningless” career?

Are you guilty of the mindset that life should be a bed of roses? Have you grown up believing if everything is great spiritually then everything in life is should be great and easy too? Do you think God intends for us to lay around naked in perfect temperatures eating fruit from trees with no responsibilities of effort?

How do you see Christ’s words in Matthew 6:26, “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them…”

Do you read this as the birds do not have a job? Do you think the only tasks in life are planting, harvesting, and storing? No, the bird has to get up every day and “find” that food. Yes God does “feed them” in the sense that He has provided enough if they will do their part. But they must make effort. They must look, the must work, and they must avoid be made lunch themselves. In many cases they must fly hundreds or even thousands of miles to the next meal because the seasons have changed. Is that an effortless existence?

Aside from meeting Maslow’s basic of needs jobs are there for us to learn and know Christ. They are there for us to fulfill scripture. Jesus said when telling a parable of work and money in Luke 16:10, “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much…” Jobs, even the dead end ones are our opportunity to demonstrate the same faithfulness Christ demonstrated to us. Perhaps the “little” is the job, and the much is the “career.”

And what of careers? This application of a skill set to give us a sense of physical safety. Jesus before leaving his career to save the world was a carpenter. (Mark 6:3) Peter and Andrew had a career in fishing. (Matt 4:18) The apostle Paul had a career in tent making. (Acts 18:3) David had a career in as a Shepard before being anointed to be king. I could go on and on, but it sure appears that biblical “careers in ministry” happened more often after careers in the world.

Yes there are spiritual callings none less than those of Ephesians 4, but that does not negate the need to show faithfulness, and to “find” the food that God has provided. Even in the wilderness the Israelites had to go and gather the manna every day. It was not delivered in vacuum sealed packaging a their tent door so that they could sit around all day watching TV and playing video games.

I guess my point is that if you don’t have a job, get one. If you have a job, pray for a direction to have a career. Pray for God to show you where your skills are unique, and how they can lead to the security of being needed by society. Don’t be the object of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians. “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you; not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example. For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either. For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread. But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good. If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.”

In this you will discover Christ. He is in the dead end job, when working for Him. He is in the meaningless Career when doing it because He showed you to. Then that calling will emerge out of having relationship with him. For a lucky few the job, career, and calling will intertwine beautifully. For the rest of us… not so much.

God bless, and get to work. Work though not chasing a dream, or lifestyle... work chasing the Lord.