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Gordon T. Smith is president of reSource Leadership International (formerly known as
Overseas Council Canada), which supports and enables excellence in theological education in
the developing world. Formerly he was academic vice president and dean and associate professor of spiritual theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He still teaches at Regent part-time.
GOD HAS CALLED YOU—first to himself, to know and follow him but also to a specific life purpose, a particular reason for being. This second call, to a defining purpose or mission in life, is often termed a vocation, from the Latin root meaning "calling." And while it has implications for your work or occupation, it also reaches wider. It includes your giftedness, your weakness, your life in community, what you do day to day.
A Theology of Work
The revolutionary message of the Bible is that work is good. Central to the biblical description of the formation of the first man and woman is the mandate they were given to till the earth and name the animals (Gen 2:15, 19-20). They were created to work, and
their work was meaningful. God made them workers so that they could be cocreators with him—not in the sense that they were creators of the earth, but in the sense that
their work was a part of God's continual re-creation and was therefore important, significant and valued by God.
Work is good. It is a gift from God. With the Fall and with sin, work became toilsome (Gen 3:17-19). But we must never confuse work with toil or denigrate the joy and privilege of work just because it involves toil; we must rather strive together for the recovery of meaningful and joyful work.
Unfortunately we have been deeply influenced by the strange notion that work is bad and should be avoided. Many people live their lives longing to be released from work, looking forward to retirement when they will no longer labor. . . . The hope of the new kingdom is not that we will be released from work but rather that our work will be in perfect partnership with God in the kingdom that is yet to come. The prophet Isaiah speaks of the new heavens and the new earth as a place where we will build houses and plant vineyards and enjoy the work of our hands (Is 65:21-22).
Our work, then, is a central expression of what it means to be a Christian believer, a critical aspect or component of our spirituality. Indeed, in many respects our work is a central context for living out our Christian identity. Of course, we can and must affirm that not all work is good. Work can be destructive and hurtful, a disservice to Christ and to others. We violate the very meaning of work when, using the skills and energy God has given us, we intentionally exploit or injure others or mainly gratify our own misguided desires. Our longing for meaningful work, then, must be framed in the context of that which is good, noble and excellent, that which enables us to bring pleasure to our Maker, that which we can say with genuine passion that we do "as to the Lord" (Col 3:23 kjv).
A Theology of Vocation
Closely related to the matter of work is the question of vocation, and of what it means to have a biblical theology of vocation. . . .It is important to stress that fundamental to a biblical theology of vocation is the reality and principle that all vocations are potentially sacred. Whether we are called into service in the church or in the world, whether to manual work or to religious work, to work in the arts or to work in education and the sciences, each call has the potential for sacredness.
If a vocation represents a call of God to serve him in the world, then that vocation is sacred because it comes from God. It therefore makes no sense to speak of a secular vocation; such a phrase is a contradiction in terms. A vocation, because it comes from God, is sacred.
From almost the beginning of its history the Christian community has wrestled with this reality. For the early church, which was deeply influenced by Hellenistic thought, any work that was "in the world" or involved active engagement with society was viewed as secular and probably evil. Thus the spiritual ideal was to leave the world, to be separate from it and to live a life of prayer and study as much as possible. A belief became deeply imbedded in the psyche of the church: that if you had a vocation you were called to leave "secular" employment and to accept the responsibility of service in and through the church. . . . But this notion is not consistent with the biblical witness, and at different points in its history the church has had prophets [such as Martin Luther and John Calvin] who have called us back to a more inclusive notion of both work and vocation.
The Longing to Make a Difference
We long to find work that is meaningful, that makes a difference and needs to be done. Further, we long to find a balance between work and leisure, between our responsibilities in the world and in the home, between obligations in the church and in our society. We need to be able to manage competing demands and in so doing manage our lives, our time and our priorities. . . . We need to be flexible, resilient and creative. We need to be people who have the capacity to learn and adjust. But in the end, . . . the most critical thing to which we can give our attention is to come to terms with our vocation [and work]. Each of individually must come to peace about what it is that we are called to do. Nothing matters more than this.
This excerpt is taken from Courage and
Calling by Gordon T. Smith. © 1999 by
Gordon T. Smith. Used with permission of
InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers
Grove, IL 60515. ivpress.com
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