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Dear Pastor, What Should I Be When I Grow Up?

Blog / Produced by The High Calling
Dear pastor

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” That’s a question we ask kids all the time. When I was younger, I struggled with this question, and I remember my pastor suggesting that I consider the priesthood.
I chuckled and said, “No.”
He did get me thinking, though. I wondered generally how many people consult with their pastor about choosing a career. But I also wondered specifically about how my faith might connect to my work. Eight years, two relocations, and a marriage later, my wife and I found ourselves in the Frio Canyon surrounded by people passionate about the importance of connecting faith and work.
These were people who weren’t afraid to share their brokenness. They were serious about relationships with Christ and with others. During those days, the staff bonded through the power of redemption and renewal. My wife is still a teacher, and she still carries that message into her classroom. She cares about her students and builds relationships with them, using her influence to help them navigate the traumatic waters of high school. She sees it as her ministry.
We learned that message in the Frio Canyon. For fifty years, Howard Butt has envisioned an empowered laity working where God has placed them, serving with excellence and integrity.
Sometimes we can get confused about our purpose. Work can become too consuming or not challenging enough. Our lives can seem to drift aimlessly. Or we find ourselves trapped by a rigid routine. These are all ways that subtle evil begins to work in our lives. Subtle evil is any distraction that carries us away from our purpose. Distraction leads to boredom, frenzy, lethargy, complaint, and a variety of other maladies. These little distractions can fester and cause us to build grand cases of defiance or persecution. Sometimes, we get so confused that we manufacture false purpose based on these distractions. We become indignant, self-absorbed, or self-righteous.
Subtle evil starts out as a minor irritation. Over time our return to the irritation produces an open wound. If we continue to feed it, soon we have a case of “staff” infection.
How do we guard against subtle evil? We recognize that God is at work in our daily lives. Our work—in the broadest sense—is God’s purpose for our lives.
I learned this message from a layman, not a pastor. Over the years, I’ve learned plenty from pastors. Those lessons have sustained me in many ways. But the message of seeing my work as a high calling from God came from a businessman who continues to take his work and his relationship with Christ very seriously.
Photo by Erica Marshall of muddyboots.org, used under a Creative Commons license.
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