Calling and Mission II - My Profession.

Tuesday, Sept 15, 2009. In what way is my profession linked to my faith? Often we live our profession in one part of our life and have our faith in another. We know that faith is not only for Sundays, we all know that. But when you come to faith at some point and you have already your job and your family and everything well established, then it is difficult to let faith penetrate the professional life as well. We do not know exactly how to do it. We have to learn from God, but still that might be a long way to go.

Is there a calling of God for us to work on a particular profession? Often people who go into full-time Christian ministry make a big thing out of their calling. “God called me to do this or that”. But people who become doctors, administrators, carpenters, scientists, financial officers etc etc do not consider their profession as their calling. In some languages the word for profession is the same as or similar to “calling”. The word roots are similar to “confession”, with latin language roots. That is an interesting observation, it seems as if our ancestors knew better, how strongly our daily work is linked and should be linked to something like calling.

We need to understand God's calling in more depth, when we want to understand our calling into a particular profession. I am not talking about the general calling to faith, but now I am talking about the calling into some work, some tasks or some work area. God's calling can be very specific. He called Moses to bring Israel out of Egypt. But his calling can also be more generic. Josef was called to live his faith in “worldly” activities. He became a manager in Egypt with very strong influence in his time, a clearly visible personality with obvious dedication to faith. Abraham was called to go into another country and work and live there - blessed by God while still waiting to be blessed with a son, waiting for decades!

God has given us gifts and talents. He has prepared one or several professions for us. He wants us to live in our profession, where we develop our talents, serve others and also earn our living by carrying out what we are talented to do. Sometimes he might call some person to a very specific profession. I think that in general there is a lot of freedom for us to work out our preferences ourselves and then go forward in faith. God takes us serious in our own decisions, he wants us to be his counterpart, created us in the image of his personality and character.

We are called to live with him. This includes every day, every hour, even every minute. It includes our “worldly” profession. The distinction between the world and God does not apply to our life any more. Everything should be in Christ, even when we cut wood, when we work out a mathematical proof, when we construct some machine or write some software. Our service or activity should be sincere and honest, full of joy and full of care. We have the far reaching opportunity to find the trace of the eternal God in our day, in the people we work with, in the things we do, the new steps we go today, the interactions and relations we are a part of. We ARE called to live with him. [R.W.E.P., jesusnetwork.eu]

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