Calling, passion, career. These are words that weighed heavily on my mind when I was a college student, trying to choose a career. It’s been especially hard in the past six months as I returned from the mission field eager to make my way back. I've been holding so many questions about what that would look like and what kind of work I would do.

There is a tension regarding work. On one side of the world, we have hustle culture which tells us we must grind our life away. On another side of the tension, we have people who say that work is work.1 How do we live in the middle of this tension? We know that work is not just work but something that God has created us to do. Think about before the fall, how Adam was tending the garden. And yet work is not our whole identity, it is not what defines us. Jesus was told by God the Father before he had done a single thing, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matt 3:17). There are some ideas about work that are prevalent in our culture, ideas that I will try to push back against.

Idea #1: What we do is who we are.

Our identity is not in our work. Let me just say that. Life is more than titles, success, or money. After I came back from Japan, I felt useless and worthless. In Japan, I had so much purpose in what I was doing. I was useful to the people around me and my whole life was dedicated to introducing people to God. And suddenly, I came back and was unemployed. Who would’ve thought that work could become an idol for missionaries? When you’re on the mission field, your work becomes everything, and it’s hard to have a life outside of that. It was a journey to see God strip away my tight grip on defining myself by my work.

Idea #2: We must follow our passion.

So many times, I hear this piece of advice: “Just follow your passion.” Here’s the thing, when you just follow what you’re passionate about, you can start to become a slave to your passions. Every time there was something I was interested in, I wanted to see how I could turn it into a career. I became engrossed with figuring out how

I could use my skills for God’s kingdom in my own twisted way, not God’s. Sometimes God will lead us into things or jobs we’re not inherently good at but will teach us an important lesson. I spent a year working on campuses sharing the gospel with students in Japan. I wasn’t exactly passionate about cold-contact evangelism, but God used that experience in my second year as I served on the digital-strategies team. Those times talking to students proved invaluable as we came up with strategies to reach them digitally.

Idea #3: We have one calling for our lives.

When I felt called to go onto the mission field to Japan, I was set on making it my life’s calling, to live at least the next 20 years of my life there. Even as I moved back to America, there was this constant pressure I put on myself to get back to Japan because that’s where I thought I could serve God best. Let’s get something clear: God’s calling is to salvation, and his guidance is usually to the next thing, not for our whole lives. In a very real sense, God doesn’t care about what we do as much as he cares about who we’re becoming. Why put pressure on ourselves to figure out what God has not yet revealed?

Idea #4:Work is work. A job is a job.

For those of us who swing to the other side of the pendulum, we also need to be reminded that God made us to work; in fact, he designed us for it. For many of us, work can just be a 9–5 clock-in, clock-out regimen. How can we look towards finding deeper value in the work that we do, seeing it as holy and as the kind of culture building that God has called us to? Whether you are a pastor, accountant, or construction worker, your work is valuable.

Closing Thoughts

I’m coming down from a high, from seeing that work is everything, from trying to force my way back to the mission field. I’m still on a journey of figuring out what’s next for me. I’m in seminary and working for some ministries, but nothing long term is set in stone. There is something freeing about just living without worry of the future, of creating and doing without worrying how I can turn it into a career.

The search for calling is ultimately a search for fulfillment and joy. No matter how much I try to follow the line of my life and figure out what fulfills me, I can’t control it. There are life circumstances, health issues, loved ones who fall sick that will affect us in devastating ways. In the end, it’s God who provides a sense of calling and fulfillment in life. God is over all of it and sees all of it.

I often think about the example of Jesus. Jesus, before he ever started his ministry, was a carpenter. I’m sure he had bad days as well as good days. Maybe he spent his years taking care of his brothers and sisters (Joseph is absent in Jesus’ adult stories). I’m sure it was not glamorous and probably mundane much of the time. An
overwhelming amount of Jesus’ life was spent working in something that wasn’t his “calling,” or his “purpose,” or his “passion.” I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel a lot of pressure to figure out what my calling is and to start killing it. The gods of our day and age are the successful, the powerful, the beautiful. Our Savior was never any of these while he lived on this earth.

My encouragement is for those who don’t know where their lives are going: Don’t worry about your whole future. What is one step of faith that you can take? And while you’re in the waiting, how can you be a little more like Jesus?