Day 1: Vocation Devotion

Monday May 4th
This Sunday, we are celebrating Stewardship Sunday.  This year, our Stewardship team picked out the theme of vocation.  Each day this week we will have a brief devotion to prepare and celebrate God’s gift of vocation.

One of the first thoughts I have on vocation comes from a story that I read in the last year about a man who sued his parents because he didn’t have a choice on being born.  Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?  That is because it is.  As a theologian, I would note that a person who does that is a person who cannot accept what it is given by God.  

That begs the thought though.  Have you ever stopped to think about the givenness of your life?  It doesn’t take long to realize that you didn’t get to choose much about anything in your life, at least, the things in your life that matter.  

You didn’t get to choose the when and where of your birth.  You didn’t even get a say so about your existence at all.  You didn’t get a choice on preferences either.  God gifted your biology, your sex, your various bodily traits, what you look like, everything.  

By this we learn that God gifted you your vocation.  Your vocation is your “calling” in life as it were.  Now most people think they must go out there and discover or guess at what God really wants them to do in life.  Usually their thoughts about vocation make them think that it is something that they must achieve or learn before they are sent to do.  Go to college, learn a trade, etc.  

Now certainly, God wants people to apply and use their gifts that God gave them.  But when I talk about vocation, I am speaking to the high and holy things that God wants you do to every day.  Here are the holiest things that God has called you to do, what he has given you to do:

You are a Christian, a creature, a parent, a child, a sibling, a neighbor, a citizen, a friend, and a co-worker.  Your vocation is found within the relationships you have with another human.  That is where God has naturally placed you.  And wouldn’t you know it, you rarely, if ever, choose those things for yourself.  “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10

That’s right, vocation is not found in the high grossing income jobs or in the things that the world really prides itself in.  Really these are useless in God’s sight because it makes us proud and pretentious.  
Vocation is rather found in the dirt and grime of everyday life that God has prepared the moment you opened your eyes.  “All of heaven’s angels rejoice and clap their hands when a Father out of love changes his child’s dirty diaper.”  If there is a diaper that needs changing, know that God wants you to do it. In fact, God is more overjoyed by that work then he is when Aaron Rodgers throws that game winning hail mary.  
Vocation is where love occurs, where the self-sacrifice of life happens.  That is what God created us for, that is the importance of the givenness of life, for there in the givenness of life we find our neighbor and all that God wants us to do.  Thanks be to God for the forgiveness of our vocation.