Tag Archives: Vocation

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My Heart’s Highway

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My Heart's Highway (CaD Ps 84) – Wayfarer

Happy are those whose strength is in you,
    in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
Psalm 84:5 (NRSVCE)

This past week, Wendy and I have been blessed beyond measure to have our kids and grandson home from Scotland. On Saturday night we took Taylor and Clayton out for dinner and enjoyed a leisurely dinner. Milo was being watched that night by Clayton’s mom, so the four of us got to enjoy uninterrupted adult conversation, in person, for hours.

One of the paths of conversation led to a discussion about one’s direction in life. The kids are about the age I was when I settled into what would become my career after having five different jobs in the first six years after college. It is a time of life filled with both opportunity and uncertainty. We talked about the difficult (some might even call it impossible) task of finding a career in life that offers both financial security and a sense of purpose.

Along my life journey, I’ve observed that this is a fascinating on-going conversation. It doesn’t end once a young adult settles on a career path. There are a number of waypoints on life’s road in which this subject of direction, security, and purpose comes up again. A new job opportunity arises that offers both greater risk and the potential for greater reward. A person hits the proverbial glass ceiling in a corporation and suddenly has to grapple with considering a career change they never expected or wanted, or learning to embrace that his or her vocation is nothing more than a means to providing for a purpose that is found outside of work hours. I’ve also observed individuals and couples who have left positions of relative security to embrace faith in choosing a purpose-full path to which they have been called. Still, there are others I’ve observed who find themselves in unexpected places of tragedy in which there was no choice of direction and, like Job, they find themselves reeling in a struggle to understand the purpose of it all.

Our direction on this road of Life continues to require asking, seeking, knocking, and faith.

Today’s chapter, Psalm 84, is the first of a subset of six songs that wrap up Book III of the larger anthology of Hebrew song lyrics we call the Psalms. The song appears to have been penned by someone from the tribe of Levi. The Levites were the Hebrew tribe responsible for Temple worship. As the tribe grew over time, the Temple duties were divided into “shifts.” One might make a pilgrimage to God’s Temple on Mount Zion in Jerusalem one or more times a year to serve for a short period of time before returning home. The songwriter laments not being in the temple where he finds joy and purpose in God’s presence.

I couldn’t help but notice verse 5 as I read it in the St. John’s Bible this morning. Happy are those “in whose heart are highways to Zion.” The songwriter found tremendous purpose in being present in God’s Temple, even if it was only periodically. I love the metaphor of a “heart’s highway.” It’s got my mind spinning this morning and my heart ruminating.

I find myself thinking about the highways of my heart, Wendy’s heart, and the hearts of our children. Where do those highways lead? On this Monday morning and the beginning of another work week, is the highway of my heart and the highway to my vocation the same path? Parallel paths? Divergent paths? Obviously, the stimulating dinner conversation from Saturday night is still resonating within me.

I also couldn’t help but notice that a rather well-known, modern worship song is pulled directly from Psalm 84 and my heart hears the familiar melody to the lyric: “Better is one day in your courts than thousands elsewhere.” Yet this takes me straight back to the “one thing I always fail to see” from a post a couple of weeks ago.

Unlike the songwriter of Psalm 84, followers of Jesus are not limited to a physical location for worship. The concept of a church building is nowhere to be found in the Great Story. After Jesus’ resurrection and ascension it the flesh-and-blood followers who are God’s Temple. I am the temple, therefore “one day in your courts” is not about me going to church on Sunday. For followers of Jesus, it is a spiritual pilgrimage of the heart to seek commune with God’s Spirit within my heart, soul, and mind in each day, each hour, each moment.

In the quiet this morning, Psalm 84 has me meditating on the “heart’s highway.” Where is headed? Where is it leading? Is my heart, soul, and mind heading in the right direction?

Good questions for a Monday morning.

Have a great week, my friend.

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A Friend’s Example

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A little sleep, a little slumber,
    a little folding of the hands to rest—
and poverty will come on you like a thief
    and scarcity like an armed man.
Proverbs 24:33-34 (NIV)

It was the first summer of college and, like most young college students, I needed to make some money. I had a part-time internship but it paid little. So, I cobbled together a string of jobs. Each weekday morning at 5:00 a.m. I started my day driving a paper route delivering the daily USA Today to convenience stores. In the evenings and weekends, I worked at a bookstore in the mall. I mowed a few lawns. And, I always kept my ear open for potential odd jobs. So it was, when a large denomination was holding their global conference in Iowa, I spent a week babysitting for a small gaggle of bratty pastors’ kids all day.

I had a friend who joined me in the day care operation and together we oversaw boys ages 8-11. There was a lot of down time as we watched over the kids in various activities, and so we had a lot of conversations.

It’s funny how certain verses are tied to very specific memories for me. It was during that week of babysitting that my friend and I somehow got talking about Proverbs. I remember that it surprised me a bit, because I never thought him to be one who would read the Bible. But he told me that he had a favorite passage and then he recited to me..

A little sleep, a little slumber,

    a little folding of the hands to rest—

and poverty will come on you like a thief

    and scarcity like an armed man.

He recited it with such precision and heartfelt conviction, that it has stuck with me the rest of my life. I can’t read these words without seeing folding his hands as he said the words, and hearing my friend’s unique vocal cadence saying them.

But, there’s more to this story. During that week, the two of us were mere acquaintances. That week planted seeds of friendship that grew into one of the most fruitful friendships I’ve experienced on my earthly journey. We had very different paths, he and I. In the 35 years we’ve been friends we’ve never lived in the same city (with the exception of a few summers home from college). We had very diverse academic and vocational paths. We’ve had very different spiritual journeys. In fact, his perfect and sincere recitation of these two verses is a rare and exceptional display of any sort of spiritual or religious conviction from him.

Thus, I find myself in the quiet this morning thinking about me and my friend hustling our butts off as teenagers and working multiple odd-jobs day and night to make money for college. I’ve observed from afar my friend pursuing his own difficult academic and career path with diligence and conviction. I’ve witnessed and celebrated with him as he has experienced tremendous success in his chosen field.

Looking back, I realize that the Proverbs he recited with such conviction, on that hot Iowa afternoon so many years ago, were words that he had ingested into his very life. He was speaking them from his soul. He embraced their wisdom and it was leading to him to the development of the virtue of hard work in his studies, his vocation, and his life.

I’m grateful to my friend. By his living example, he has taught me that it is one thing to read the words and understand what they say. It’s another thing to internalize their wisdom and let them motivate and guide my behavior.

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Vocation and Ministry

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Or is it only I and Barnabas who lack the right to not work for a living?
1 Corinthians 9:6 (NIV)

Work has been a little crazy for me in recent weeks. I’m in the midst of my 25th year with our company and completing my first year at the helm, leading the operation. Year-end means wrapping up current year business for clients, writing and managing proposals for the coming year, Board meetings, year-end financials, and all of the administrative work that comes with all of it. Beyond that there is the vision casting and strategic planning for where I hope to lead the company in the year(s) ahead.

When I was hired back in 1994 I left 6 years of working in full-time pastoral and para-church ministry. At the time, my mother was a bit disappointed in my vocational change. For several years she would occasionally ask “Are you ever going to go back into the ministry?” My response was always, “I never left ministry.” She would roll her eyes and say, “I know. But, you know what I mean.”

What she meant was that “ministry” means working full-time for a church; That “real ministry” is a higher spiritual status reserved for those employed in an institutional church organization. I have found this to be a very common belief, especially in previous generations. I still, on occasion, have someone approach me after I teach on a Sunday morning and ask, “Why aren’t you in ministry?” Once again, I always respond with, “I am in ministry.” I always would like to add: “And, so are you!”

I love an appreciate the incredibly gifted and driven full-time staff members of our local church community. The operation couldn’t function without them, and because of them it functions remarkably well. Because of them, the operation accomplishes abundantly more than most of our community’s members even realize. I’m quite certain, however,  that even they would agree with me that “ministry” is not confined to those individuals on the organization’s payroll.

I find it a dangerous notion to place a label of “ministry” on those in full-time employment by a church or non-profit para-church ministry. The implication is that any believer who is not in one of those two vocational silos is not in ministry. This means that those of us not in full-time church or ministry employment are not in ministry (and comfortably off the hook from having to think about all that it might otherwise mean).

This is, however, contrary to the entire paradigm that God’s Message teaches. Every believer is a part of the body of Christ. Every believer is spiritually gifted by Holy Spirit regardless of age, gender, background, education, or training. Why? Because every believer is part of the ministry of the Body of Christ. We, all who believe, are His hands, feet, eyes, ears, and mouth. There are no exemptions or exceptions. I find this to be a radically different paradigm than what the institutional church has taught and exemplified for centuries. I believe it’s time to rediscover the fullness of meaning in the “priesthood of all believers.” We’re far overdue to rediscover the inherent ministry of every vocation.

I couldn’t help but read today’s chapter in context of yesterday’s chapter, in which Paul urged the Corinthian believers to surrender their right (to eat food sacrificed to idols) in order to lovingly honor fellow believers who think differently. In today’s chapter, Paul explains how he has done the very thing he’s urging them to do. He had a right to be married, to travel with a wife, to receive a full-time income for his preaching and service to the church just like all of the other apostles were doing. Paul, however, chose not to be married. Wherever he was living in the moment he chose to work at his family trade (making and repairing tents) to provide his own income. I can guarantee you that Paul leveraged his day-job of tent making and manual labor into opportunities to meet strangers, build relationships, have conversations, be an example, and extend the reach of his ministry. Tent making wasn’t separate from Paul’s ministry. It was a central and crucial part of it.

This morning I’m thankful for an amazing company I’ve had the privilege of serving for 25 years. I’m thankful for a host of relationships with colleagues, clients, and coworkers that I’d never have had were it not for my vocation. I’m grateful for the honor and privilege to lead and serve in both business and among my local community of Jesus’ followers. This morning in the quiet I find my spirit echoing Paul’s sentiment to the believers in Corinth:

What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make full use of my rights as a preacher of the gospel.

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The Slog Will Give Way to the Passion

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“But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.”
2 Chronicles 15:7 (NIV)

Yesterday I had the pleasure of sharing a rare meal with my oldest friend. Scott and I grew up on the same block growing up and we shared some of our most formative years together. Let’s just say, we’ve got lots of stories. Scott lives in Georgia now and spends a lot of time working in Africa providing love and life’s basic necessities to some our world’s neediest people. We’re lucky if we get a conversation every 5-10 years, but when we do it’s as if no time has passed. We cannonball right into the deep end of the pool.

We were talking about our vocations and where we find ourselves in our careers at this stage of our journey. Scott asked me if I love my work. He asked if I’m passionate about it. The truth is that I do love my job and I do experience passion in my work. Having said that, it’s also work and in my experience every job is a slog sometimes. That’s why it’s called work. It’s also not the thing I’m most passionate about in this life.

In this morning’s chapter, King Asa of Judah is approached by a prophet named Azariah. King Asa and his army were flying high from a huge victory of the nation of Cush (modern-day Ethiopia). Asa had sought God and had been rewarded. Now the prophet brings a message telling Asa that while the thrill of victory and the spiritual high everyone is feeling from God’s blessing is awesome, the work is just beginning. Being passionate and clinging to God can be easy in the midst of a battle. Being passionate and clinging to God when nothing much is going on or I’m slogging through the mundane is a different story.

Scott’s question came to me yesterday morning at breakfast. It was my first day back in the office after a week’s vacation at the lake with Wendy. I knew what was waiting for me after the joy of breakfast with my oldest friend: a pile of calls and emails to return, the backlog of work that didn’t get done last week, and the pressure to catch up. I knew this week would be a slog and I’m wasn’t feeling passionate about it. I’ll feel more passionate next week when I’m working with our client, rewarding people for the great service they’re providing, and helping to make a measurable difference in that company.

Today? I have to listen to the words of the prophet: “Be strong and don’t give up.” The slog will give way to passion.

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God’s Will for Your Life. Really.

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Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NIV)

I have noticed that throughout life’s journey there distinct stages in which followers of Jesus spend a lot of time preoccupied with the question of “What is God’s will for me?” For those who are not so spiritually inclined to consider God in the equation, there are still natural periods of life’s journey when we ask, “Where am I going?”

The first major phase of questioning comes around the time of high school when decisions about college or military service or entering the work force are staring down at you. This can be a nerve wracking time. So many options leading down different paths. Which one is correct? Does God or fate have a role to play? What if I choose wrong?

Another round hits post college or military service when careers and/or family generally merges with life’s natural path. Wendy and I have walked along side our daughters in recent years as they’ve navigated those decisions. “Where am I going?” “Where should I live?” “Do I take the job I’m not sure I want or hold out for the one that I do?”

As a child, I observed that my grandparents and parents generations often settled onto a path for 35-45 years until retirement, when the next round of “What do we do now?” began. Increasingly, I observe that mid-life career changes, a rapidly changing economy, and a mobile society have thrust some of us into ceaseless questioning. It can create all sorts of anxiety, fear, and doubt.

On occasion our daughters and others have asked me my thoughts on these big decisions about life’s direction. I don’t profess to be a Sage, but there are a few things I’ve come to understand. The bad news is that I don’t have a crystal ball. I can’t tell you with certainty God’s will for the choice of your life’s direction, college, spouse, or vocation. The good news is that I can speak with certainty about God’s will for you.

I think we do ourselves a disservice looking for some singular, well defined path that God has ordained for us. While that may be the experience for some, I’ve definitely found that it’s the exception and not the rule. Jesus definitely foreknew that certain things would happen, like Peter denying Him three times, or Judas’ betrayal. Jesus even gave Peter a shadowy prophetic word about how his life journey would end. But Jesus fell far short of providing his closest followers a detailed road map for their lives after His ascension. Life is a faith journey, not a Google Maps prescribed expedition.

What is God’s will for us, however, is well defined. It’s simply and directly provided in today’s chapter.

Rejoice always. Good times are for thanksgiving. Stretches of monotony are for developing patience and persistence. Bad times are all about growing perseverance and character. Rejoicing in each moment, no matter where we find ourselves on God’s road, is God’s will for us.

Pray continually. This life journey is about process. It’s not just about our destination, but about the development of ourselves and our relationship with God. God doesn’t abandon us to figure it out for ourselves, but is with us each step of the way. If we continue to ask, seek, knock, and conversationally process with God, I believe we progress much faster. That’s why it’s God’s will that we dialogue with Him.

Give thanks in all circumstances. It’s easy to fall into the cycle of self-centered pessimism. I do it all the time. Willfully choosing to think about each and every person and thing for which we can be thankful gives us much needed perspective throughout each stretch of life’s journey. I have one acquaintance who, every night before she retires, tweets what she is thankful for. I appreciate her example, and it reminds me that God wants me to do the same.

What is God’s will for your life? If you’re asking me what college you should go to, what career to choose, or whether you should get married then I’m sorry I can’t do any more than help you weigh your options and apply what wisdom is available in making your choices. I can tell you however, without question, God’s will for your life:

  • Rejoice always.
  • Pray continually.
  • Give thanks in all circumstances.

Perhaps if we focus on these three every day, the answer to all the other questions we have about God’s will for us on this life journey will organically take care of themselves.

 

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What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

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Then my God put it into my mind to assemble the nobles and the officials and the people to be enrolled by genealogy.
Nehemiah 7:5 (NRSV)

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Astronaut, athlete, soldier, doctor, teacher, fire fighter, actor, engineer…

I sometimes think that many take for granted what freedom, rugged individualism, and the American experience have meant for those of us who’ve been blessed to grow up here, whose families have been here for generations.

My great-grandfather came by himself from the Netherlands as a teenager. He started as a carpenter, helped found the Co-op in Boyden, Iowa. He then started his own hardware store. My grandfather went to college and became an educator. His sons worked in meat packing and accounting. My dad’s children have worked in restoration and architectural arts, education, ministry and business. My children are finding their way into art and event management along with cosmetic sales.

What do you want to do with your life?

For the ancients in Nehemiah’s day, your family of birth often determined what you would do as an occupation. To quote Fiddler on the Roof, it was tradition. Only descendants of Aaron could be priests. Only descendants of Levi could work in the temple of God. If you were a “son of Korah” you were a musician. The genealogical record that Nehemiah referenced was critical to their society. Your family told who you were, and what you would be when you grew up.

The destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman in 70 A.D. was a momentous event in Jewish history because all of the extensive genealogical records of the Jewish people were destroyed. In the global diaspora of the Jewish people over the centuries the Jewish people lost track of which family and tribe they belonged to. Those orthodox believers in Israel today who wish to see, and are actively working towards, the rebuilding of a temple in Jerusalem face a legal dilemma in the law of Moses. If only sons of Aaron can be priest and only Levites can serve in such a temple according to God’s law, how do we know who the descendants of Aaron and Levites are? I wouldn’t be surprised if there are DNA experts in Israel working on an answer.

Today, I’m thinking about how awful it would be if I was stuck in the original family business of my great-grandfather. I’d be a terrible carpenter, and a very depressed adult. The same goes for being an accountant like my father. Both of those men were good at what they did, but my passion, gifts, and abilities lie elsewhere. I wonder how the ancients did it.

I’m grateful for the unique passions, gifts, talents and abilities God gives to each of us. I’m equally thankful to live in a land of freedom where I can choose to pursue those passions … or not.

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Takin’ Care of Business

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Then the high priest Eliashib set to work….
Nehemiah 3:1a (NRSV)

[cue: Takin’ Care of Business by Bachman-Turner Overdrive]

“You get up every morning from the alarm clock’s warning…”

…walk through the kitchen and head upstairs.

I have labored in a non-traditional work environment for the past 22 years. My company has never had a traditional bricks and mortar location for our business. Every member of our group works from home. It has always been this way since our founder started the company in his own home. Our staff meetings began around his kitchen table.

Over the years we’ve had many group members who have struggled with working from home. Some, after trying it for a time, have opted to move on to a traditional job where they “go to work” in the morning and “come home” at night, which I totally get. I have had to forge a more non-traditional approach to finding the balance between work and personal life when they co-exist in the same space.

One of the qualities I’ve had to develop in my life is self-discipline. Our team operates on weekly, monthly quarterly, and annual project deadlines for our clients. The work has to get done and his has to get done on time. If I don’t set to work on a regular basis then I’m going to find myself in a world of hurt. And, I confess that a certain amount of my self-discipline development has come from learning the hard way.

In today’s chapter I was struck by the sheer number of people who were mentioned in the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls. The project took a host of people who “set to work.” Many took responsibility for the sections of the wall near their homes and/or businesses. It wasn’t left for others. It wasn’t hired out. The work wasn’t placed on the back of slaves. High priests, rulers, officials, businessmen, and laborers all set to work.

This morning I’m reminded of the value of setting to work. I observe a world and a culture that is constantly trying to get out of having to do anything. The temptation to procrastinate never goes away, and there is so much value in the simple discipline of getting the job done. Jesus said that the harvest is plentiful, but there aren’t enough people willing to do the work.

Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have some business to take care of.

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Chapter-a-Day Numbers 28

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“Conclude the seventh day in holy worship; don’t do any regular work on that day.” Numbers 28:25 (MSG)

It’s funny to think that the concept of a regular day of rest, established thousands of years ago by a nomadic nation wandering in the Sinai desert, continues to this day with our “weekends.”

I know a lot of friends who grew up in families who strictly observed the “sabbath” by doing nothing. Sundays were a day of sitting quietly with your family and doing as little as possible. Some have even related a complex system of rules used to decide whether an activity was appropriate. The idea of wrangling with such mental gymnastics seems like a lot of work in and of itself.

I’ve always thought that rest was a much broader concept than being absolutely still. As a person who sits all week and works on a computer, the act of getting outside and puttering in my lawn, my pitiful flower garden, or on a house project is not work. It’s rest from my sedentary life. Being active and playful in ways unrelated to my daily occupation gives life to my soul and my body which needs to move and to be stimulated by activity other than that which I do too many hours of each week.

Today, I’m looking forward to a weekend of rest, and please don’t misunderstand. I’ll be very active, but these particular activities will bring a large measure of peace to my soul.