Reconsidering Vocation

Today, I was asked by someone older and wiser what I saw as my life's vocation. I wanted to know everything my life held. I wanted to have some sort of professional and pertinent answer. But I didn't.

I knew my desires, so I stutterred through those, somewhat ashamed. Why? Because I wanted to have some sort of grandiose ideas for my life. Deep down inside, I knew the selfish desire of my heart was self-glory and self-recognition. Sometimes--it seems far too often--those around you expect that as your motivation.

And the implicit question for seniors, it seems, is "what are you going to do with your education?" But is this not, at its root, a utilitarian question? Not that we shouldn't do something. Not that we should be passive couch potatoes. But what if--and just humor me here for a second--what if the only purpose for my time at PHC was to make me more of a whole person? What if it was merely to make me "more human"--that is, more similitudinous to the ideal, creaturely telos of an imago Dei? What if my vocation was to change diapers, or scrub toilets, or feed starving orphans, or write a book that was never published? To make the question even more potent--what if I died tomorrow and had no vocation left but to have worshiped Him in everything tonight? Would the time I spent at PHC be a waste?

Grappling with these questions on an intellectual level is not very hard. It's fun to write about, and it's easy to theorize about the fear of man and how we really ought to be fearing God and looking for eternal glory weights rather than earthly ones. And it is downright hard when those you love and live in close relationship with do not understand. But friends, take heart. Senior year is upon many of us. There are struggles within and pressures without. Yet remember the doctrine of vocation, of calling.

When the world, when your friends and relatives and professors ask you what you're going to do with your life, take heart. We may not have all the answers. But on the other hand, if you do have answers from the Lord, don't shy away from them for the sake of pleasing men. It may be that you find the humbler calling more challenging in its simplicity and more sublime in its mundanity. So lift your eyes up. Walk not as menpleasers. Follow the patterns laid out in His Word with unabashed boldness, and He will make straight paths for your feet.

"Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it"