I’m now a junior in college, and as we’ve transitioned into online classes for (presumably) the rest of our semester, many of us juniors are facing the idea of senior year a bit sooner than we thought we would. At least, I am. I have two (and a quarter) semesters left in college, and by next December I’ll have finished my studies for my major, English, and my minor, Digital Entrepreneurship. I’ll spend my spring semester taking classes of interest and supplemental classes that’ll hopefully give me some hard skills as I go out into my future career.
The idea that within twelve months I’ll be facing graduation, a career, and “real life” is, I won’t lie, a little intimidating. Especially considering how about two years ago I was writing this post, about my freshman year, reflections that still seem so near and recent.
One of the biggest “themes” throughout my time at college has been the idea of calling. It’s something we talk about often at my school: what does it mean to seek your calling as a Christian in a secular world? For a long time I don’t think I necessarily had the right perspective on this. I thought that seeking my calling–seeking how I could honor Christ in my career–meant finding the one career that God had “ordained” for me to take. That by some divine revelation I would one day know that I was “meant” to be a journalist, or an editor, or a copywriter, or a lawyer. And this belief gave me a lot of anxiety.
I never felt that there was, necessarily, one career that I felt “called” towards. But recently I began to wonder if I had been thinking about it wrongly. Perhaps it isn’t that God necessarily calls people to a specific position. Rather, the LORD definitely calls us to use our gifts in a way that bring Him glory and that advance His kingdom. Last night, a friend of mine shared in a Bible study about the parable of the talents. In the Bible, Jesus tells the story of a manager who left his household for a bit, leaving his servants each with a bit of money to steward. Some of these servants took this money and invested it, or used to it earn more. Others hid the money and kept it safe. The servants who honored the master the most were the ones who used this money and got a return on it, taking the gift that had been given and using it to give back to the master.
That’s exactly what we’re called to do with the gifts the LORD has given us. First, if we have been given the gift of salvation, we must be witnesses with that gift, bringing more into His kingdom. But we have also been given other gifts, other “talents”, which we can use to honor Him. For some people, these gifts can be used to meet a very specific need–they might have a more specific and exact career, then, through which they will honor God by pursuing their calling of using their gifts to give back to Him. Other people (and I think I might fall more into this category) might be able to serve God in a really wide variety of careers, finding a diverse set of ways to honor God through the application of the gifts He has given us. I once found that overwhelming, intimidating. But I now see that, too, as a gift.
God opens doors in our lives, yet we have also been given free will for a reason. Over the past few years, God has blessed me with opening a number of doors for various job opportunities and careers, some of which are notable divergences from where I thought I would serve Him. He has opened these doors, but I must be the one who steps through them. That’s what faith is. He is not going to push me through the door. But if we seek to honor Him and seek ways that He has opened doors in our lives, then we might bring Him honor by stepping out in faith and making a choice. Choosing to honor Him in our vocation, because ultimately the calling all of us share is to give glory to God in and through all things.