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On the campus of Western Oregon State College, a young woman named Susan sat across the office from me, laughed and said, “I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.” Not an unusual sentiment on a college campus, but she was actually a professional working in college housing. A few months earlier, she had moved her whole family across the country to take her current job. Yet she still had an uncertainty, a lack of fulfillment in her career.

We want to be fulfilled, to live the “abundant life” Jesus spoke of. For most of us, the satisfaction and peace in our lives primarily depend on how we answer The Big Three: Will I live in obedience to God through Jesus? Whom will I marry? What kind of work will I do?

For many, one or both of the first two questions create a significant level of angst, and they’re certainly the more important of the three. But the third question looms large during the college years with the mistaken assumption that once answered it goes away. Susan’s situation, though, is the norm because most people expect successful and meaningful work to bring a sense of purpose to life.

Actually, the reverse is true. A sense of purpose in life leads us to successful and meaningful work. No career counseling formula or test works for everybody or infallibly for anybody. But wise habits of thinking and being provide a framework for making career decisions during college and mid-career changes—and allow God to train us for the work he is planning for our future. What are these wise habits? They are what builds strong character and a sense of what God is doing in our lives.

Know What You’re About

“Your calling,” said Frederick Buechner, “is where the world’s great need and your great desire intersect.” God doesn’t make mistakes when he creates each of the diverse personalities and intellects that currently use up air and water on this planet. Our part of the deal is to know our desires and talents, to develop them, to look at the situation in our world, and to ask “Where can my peculiar mix of potential make a difference in the world that is satisfying to me and the people I influence?”

The two sides of Buechner’s equation balance each other. For example, I have a great desire to eat Korean bittersweet chocolate—but the world doesn’t have a great need for more chocolate eaters. (Yes, I hear you, micro-economics students. But the owners of small Korean chocolate factories will find buyers and be able to make a living. Once you’ve tasted it you’ll agree.) Someone, though, with a facility for foreign language and a desire to teach business at the college level can find a place in the world where a struggling economy needs business acumen to develop. If one is willing, that’s a good place to be. Using talents in that way will also provide an environment for Christian witness.

Thomas Merton wrote, “A tree gives glory to God by being a tree.” The same is true of us. And we can plant ourselves strategically. Knowing what you’re about allows you to evaluate opportunities in light of what you see God doing in your life and the life he’s calling you to. My one-sentence guidepost is a line from Chuck Colson’s book Presenting Belief in an Age of Unbelief—“Penetrate the mainstream of thought in secular culture.” Whenever opportunities come up, I run them through a screen of my values, and this one is primary: will I be penetrating the mainstream of thought in secular culture? I see that secular culture has three “mainstreams of thought”: entertainment, politics and education. When I was teaching in Japan, a very secular culture, I was asked to lead a Bible study for students at my school. I said yes with the assurance that I was accepting a responsibility directly in line with the work God was doing in and through my life.

What do you do, though, when all the doors to your calling seem to be shut, or when you can’t even discern anything as lofty as a “calling”?

Trust God; Work Hard

A good final examination for Christian students leaving any stage of life for the next would be just two questions: Are you trusting God? Are you working hard? Examples of this habit can be shown in almost any life, but the Bible has some of the best.

When Joseph was still at home, God gave him a dream of being a ruler. But in the years that followed, he experienced the life of a prisoner, a slave, and a convict—as far from the fulfillment of the dream as he could have been, humanly speaking. And humanly speaking, Joseph’s response could have been, “That dream was a mistake. God has forgotten me, or at the very least decided not to use me. I’m only going to do what these people make me do.”

But Joseph responded as a servant of a sovereign God. And God used Joseph’s jobs in his years of suffering to prepare him for the work he had dreamed of. First, Joseph served as the manager of Potiphar’s household. Then, after being falsely accused of sexual assault and condemned to jail, he rose to be the top manager there, too. Only God could see that he was ultimately preparing Joseph to become the prime minister of Egypt, but during those early years Joseph grew in faith and did whatever work his dismal, yet God-ordained circumstances required.

David is another example. While his father Jesse was trying to convince Samuel to choose one of his other sons to be king of Israel, David was out in the back forty watching over the sheep. He learned to protect his flock with his sling long before God used it to slay Goliath.

Ruth, who had lost her husband, followed her forlorn mother-in-law back to Israel and served her faithfully. Little did she know the blessings in store for her or the joy she would bring others because of her loyal love.

So trust God, but don’t sit still. He knows your future and is preparing you for it in ways you are not aware of. His business is provision; our business is to steward the opportunities and responsibilities that come into our lives.

Stay in Fellowship

During times of uncertainty, we need fellowship that rises above potlucks and bingo. We need times and places of corporate fellowship that renew our confidence in God and our sense of companionship with others in God’s family. We also need regular times of private fellowship where we can pray, shine the light of Scripture on our decisions and motivations, and soak up some strength in silence and solitude.

God isn’t highly impressed with our training. He’d rather equip us with godly character. Staying in fellowship is crucial for God’s timing in our lives because he uses people and his Word to do the equipping. God puts a spiritual gift in one believer’s life to strengthen others. And the Scripture helps us to be “thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). Since viewing the world as part secular, part sacred is our idea, not God’s, “every good work” includes every good work, regardless of where the church walls are built.

God alone knows the value and purpose of our present circumstances. After Moses fled Pharoah’s court, he was a shepherd for forty years before he got another chance to serve Israel as an agent of deliverance. What did he think after he’d been gone from Egypt for eighteen years? For 25? For 38 years? He’d been with the sheep for so long, he couldn’t even speak well! Were the leadership qualities he had learned in Pharoah’s court simply worthless to God now? No. When God finally spoke after forty years, it was to a man uniquely prepared to lead the straying Israelites through the desert for the next forty years.

Know what you’re about. Trust God; work hard. Stay in fellowship.

Moving from college to career is a crisis point in life. But rest assured that God is building character in you for the work he has for you in the future. Being a responsible steward of the present is the first step of training for your future.