We can go down the wrong path, as Erma Bombeck reminds us.
She had some simple advice for Meredith College graduation, "Never confuse
fame and success. Madonna is one. Mother Theresa is the other."
A Peanuts cartoon reminds us that this question can seem
overwhelming. Lucy and Linus are standing under a clear, dark sky at
night. They see the stars in all their
majesty. Lucy, however, has a different
idea about it: "Space is too large.
We don't really need all that room, most of those planets, and stars are
way too big! The whole solar system
needs readjusting." Linus responds:
"What can we as individuals do?"[1]
My first question is this. Who will you become?
Early in our lives, and at critical moments throughout our
lives, we are making ourselves. We are deciding the kind of person we will be.
Some people will say that they need time to find themselves. I understand that
and I am sympathetic. The sad reality is that many people, if they are honest,
will take that long journey inward and discover an onion. They will find that
no one is home. The reason is that the soul, the self, who you are, is waiting
for you to take responsibility for forming it. We create who we are through the
commitments and decisions we make.[2]
The question of who you become, in the Christian context, is
relatively simple one. You are to spend your life becoming a Christian. What
might that look like? A "Pontius Puddle" cartoon begins with "I
wonder if God can really hear me." The next frame shows Pontius praying,
"Hey God! What should I do with my life?" The third frame has a voice
from heaven saying, "Feed the hungry, right injustice, work for
peace." "Just testing!" Pontius replies. "Same here,"
God speaks back.
We do not know just know the answer to such questions. The
answers do not come easily for most of us. We discover our calling, and most of
us do with great difficulty. We make mistakes before we get it right. We must
go through some pain, take some risk, experience some adversity, and struggle.
We discover gifts we did not know we had due to the challenges and experiences
of life. Most of us do not get epiphanies. We get a whisper or faint urge.
Often, our calling comes hidden in the experience of everyday life. Our
responsibility is to hear and respond.
My second question is this. What will you do with your life?
To what work will you commit yourself?
A few kids in school seem to know from first grade on just
what they wanted to be when they grew up. Do you remember? He or she wanted to
be a doctor, and so, chemistry sets, dissecting earthworms, hanging out at the
science museum, taking the right classes, have summer jobs at labs and
hospitals, and eventually trot off to medical school.
Most of us spend quite a bit of time shopping around before
we finally find, or fall into, a profession that seems to suit our personality.
The most popular childhood careers of firefighter, football player, ballerina
and astronaut do not have large numbers of adults actually involved in those
pursuits. Instead, we "settle" for jobs that need to be done or are
the most available. When is the last time you heard a kid dreaming about
growing up to be an office manager, banker, factory worker, or an electrical
line repairer. Nevertheless, someone must do these jobs well, if we are to keep
our businesses, our banks, our communities and our homes running smoothly.
One career choice that, for good or ill, has always put a
lot of emphasis on hearing an early and persistent "calling" is the
ministry - specifically those who seek formal ordination and see their identity
as a recognized member of a profession. Some always knew they were
"called" to ministry - the kids who conducted all the pet funerals,
organized fake weddings, and held slightly spooky prayer vigils throughout
their childhood. Then there are those who experience a much more dramatic
"calling" as the result of a transforming Damascus-Road moment in
their lives. These are the men and women who may have been well settled in
either perfectly "normal," or sometimes more impressively in
perfectly wicked lives. These are the men and women who may have said all their
lives, "There's one thing I'll never consider becoming - a minister."
Then, suddenly, the command of Christ on their lives brings them up short. For
these individuals a "calling" is more an identifiable moment than an
unfolding work-in-progress.
For
most of us, what we do may change as we consider the connection between who we
are and what we do. I offer an afternoon that changed a life forever. Here is
the story:
Rick
Olson stood with his son Patrick on a hill overlooking a panoramic view of
downtown Pittsburgh with its three rivers and tall buildings. As they gazed
over the railing on the Mt. Washington observation deck, Patrick pointed to the
barges floating up and down the three rivers, a blue-and-gold bridge and a host
of other scenes there laid out in front of them, all the while asking questions
— “What kind of boat is that? How do they get the sand out of the railcars and
into the barges? Which river goes south to north? Is it that one or that one?”
Rick
had been living in Pittsburgh for 22 years and had never paid attention to
things like that. For two hours, Patrick made observations, asked questions,
and Rick could only say, “Hmmmm.”
Then
Patrick asked his dad to point out the building where he had been working every
day for five years as a corporate lawyer specializing in radio station mergers.
There in that steel and glass edifice Rick was known as “The Mechanic” for his
ability to close the deal, even though he wasn’t very good at bringing in
business. Well, at least Rick knew where his building was and pointed out the
downtown tower.
“What’s
the building next to it?” asked Patrick. Rick did not know. He had walked past
that building nearly every day for five years and he had no idea. How could he
not know?
When
they returned home, Rick made his son dinner, played with him, read him a
story, put him in bed and kissed him goodnight. But when Rick came downstairs
and plopped down on the couch, he had an epiphany. One thought kept gnawing at
him: “I’d been here 22 years and never noticed all those things. What else have
I been missing?”[3]
Rick
realized that he was unhappy as a corporate lawyer. His firm passed him over
for partner. He was not making much money. He scheduled his whole life around
work, and it began to overwhelm him. He remembered the time his wife (now his
ex) was scheduled for gallbladder surgery and on the way to the hospital one of
the partners gave him a cell phone and suggested he make calls to clients while
in the waiting room. He remembered the time that his son Patrick had to sit in
his office all night while his dad met with clients.
He
was multi-tasking his life and still not making it. It was time for a change.
That
night Rick was 80 percent sure that he wanted to quit, but he needed to find
the other 20 percent to be sure. That came in the form of a serious leg injury
he sustained playing recreational hockey that forced him out of action for
quite a while.
When
Rick woke up in the hospital and the doctor told him that his foot and leg were
broken in at least 11 places, Rick’s response was to laugh. “They just unlocked
the gate. This is my chance to walk away.”
The
doctor replied, “You won’t be walking anywhere for quite a while.”
“That’s
fine by me,” said Rick.
Ironically,
in the midst of his 10-month rehabilitation, Rick had found the courage to move
on with his life. For 20 years, he had said that when work got frustrating he
would “rather drive a truck.”
Therefore,
that is what he did.
Rick
now spends 60 percent of his time driving an over-the-road tanker truck,
working 10 days on the road and then getting at least four days to spend with
Patrick uninterrupted by his job. “I needed to do something different,” he
explains. “I didn’t anticipate that I’d fall in love with the job.”
Many
of us like to give the impression that we have life all put together nicely and
neatly. In reality, life is full of twists and turns, corners around which we
cannot see, hills, and valleys. When the Christian takes seriously the effect
that his or her relationship with Christ will have, the answers to such
questions become harder. Our answers to such questions may change over the
course of our lives, but we need to keep wrestling with them. We have only this
life to live.
