Work.

Work.

Don’t over-spiritualize.  You can serve the Lord in a thousand different jobs.  We need missionaries and we need pastors.  But we also need entrepreneurs who create jobs so people can make money so they can support missionaries and pastors.  And we need entrepreneurs because work is good.  Please don’t ever think you are a second-class citizen in the kingdom of God if you aren’t in full-time ministry.  You can honor the Lord as a teacher, mother, doctor, lawyer, loan officer, or social worker; you can work in retail, fast food, politics, or big business; you can be a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker.  You can be just about anything you want as long as you aren’t lazy (Proverbs 6:6-11; 26:13-16), and whatever you do you perform to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).
God calls His people to lots of different things.  Sometimes you feel a sense of calling to your job and, you know what, sometimes you don’t.  I’m extremely thankful that I love what I do for a living.  I feel badly for people who only tolerate their jobs, or worse.  But we must all serve the Lord with heart, soul, strength, and mind wherever He’s placed us.  Unfortunately, we’ve  turned the idea of calling or vocation on its head.  The Reformers emphasized calling in order to break down the sacred-secular divide.  They said, if you are working for the glory of God, you are doing the Lord’s work, no matter whether you’re a priest or a monk or a banker.  But we’ve taken this notion of calling and turned it upside down, so instead of finding purpose in every kind of work we are madly looking for the one job that will fulfill our purpose in life.
I’m not arguing for complacency in or bitter resignation to your present circumstances.  I am arguing for what the apostle Paul advocated: godliness with contentment.  The two together form “great gain,” he declared (1 Timothy 6:6).  Complacency and contentment are often confused, but there is a difference between the two.  Contentment is saying, “God has me here for a reason, and if He never does anything different, I’ll still serve and praise Him.”  Complacency is saying, “Things will never change, so why bother trying?”  The complacent are like wine left with the dregs, like coffee sludge at the bottom of your cup, like the wicked “who say in their hearts, ‘The Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill’” (Zephaniah 1:12).  Nothing is impossible with God, so go ahead and run hard after your big plans and take a shot at your dream job.  But remember that in almost any job, God can be pleased with your work so long as you are taking pleasure in Him as you do it.

- Kevin DeYoung