Do You Have a Vocation?

I was nearly done with my first semester of my senior year when I met a fork in the road that I did not see coming and, quite frankly, didn't want.  I was one semester away from graduating with a double major in history and education.  From the time I visited campus I knew exactly what I was meant to do.  I was going to teach history and civics in middle or high school and coach.  I had always loved social studies and my coaches had such a profound impact on my life.  I knew this was what I was going to do.  All I had left to do was finish the semester and then student teach.

But God had other plans.

On move in day of my freshman year I looked at the tables set out on Clinton Field by the various campus groups.  One caught my eye.  It was a sign up sheet for calling sports on the campus radio station.  I signed my name and thought little of it until I got a call that December.  They wanted to know if I wanted to help call a men's college basketball game. I said, yes.  I was the color man for that game and I was so impressed by Jeff Moss as he did play-by-play.  I had to try it.  So, I did and I was hooked.  Eventually I spent a few years on the staff of the campus station.  Not so I could get a really small pay check but so I could schedule myself to do as many games as possible.

Radio was my hobby, but God had other plans.  

During the end of the first semester my senior year I felt, and I don't know how to express it other than a strong feeling, that God was calling me to do radio and not be a teacher.  I tried to inform Him of all the good I could do in the school system.  I told him all the impact I planned to have on young men as a coach.  I pleaded with Him to consider the amount of work I had put in and how far I was on my degrees.  None of this impressed Him much.  I could not sleep as I wrestled with God about His plans and my good, well thought out plans.

Finally, I sat up in bed (my bed was directly underneath my roommates and directly on the floor) and I said, "OK, I'll do it." 

I'll skip my terror of telling my parents and go right to when I told the head of the education department my change.  He, being a God-fearing man, simply replied, "If God is telling you to go into radio why wouldn't you listen to Him?"

So, I graduated with a history degree and before I graduated I had a job at the same station I am still currently employed by nearly seventeen years later.  Seventeen years later I am immensely glad that I listened.

During the Reformation the medieval Catholic Church's separation of the secular and sacred was abandoned by protestants and the idea of vocation was championed.  The Reformers believed that we are called by God into the roles that He has placed us.  Vocation was how they described it.  Whether you were a pastor or a pot washer, men like Martin Luther were sure that you could please and glorify God.

Vocation is our divine call from God to serve Him by loving our neighbors through everyday work, family life and civic duties.  If you are a pastor, a teacher, an engineer, a stay-at-home mother, a dairy farmer, a student or whatever the case may be, and whether that position is permanent or for the next six weeks, and if you feel joy radiating as you do it or are simply doing it to make ends meet, you've got a vocation from the Sovereign God.

I'm going to try something somewhat risky.  I want to use my specific vocation that brings me my paycheck to explore how we can be true to God in our vocation.  I won't be using other vocations I have (father, churchman, neighbor, etc). This is a risk, because it has the unfortunate possibility of being a "look at me" thing.  That's not my intention.  Rather, I would like to use my vocation as a template for helping us think and think well about how we honor God in our various vocations.

Love God.  Love Neighbor.

One prayer I consistently pray before a sports broadcast is: "Let me be a blessing to my community."  When I am at my best in recognizing that I have a vocation and not simply a job that is my prayer.  I should do it every time and not just most times, but I am a work in progress.

"...You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 22:37-40

Do I love my listener?  Do I work hard to serve them, to help them "be there" when they can't, to give them truth as clearly and entertainingly as I can? Do I love the sponsors?  Do I desire to help them grow the number of people that know about their products and services or do I view them as something in the way of people hearing me yap?  Do I love the people involved in the event?  Do I treat each player like they were my daughter, each coach like they're my friend and each official like they might be my brother?  Can I be honest when any or all of them fail and be able to speak like his father was sitting right next to me?

There are three groups of people that matter in the broadcast and I'm not one of them: The listeners, the sponsors and the people involved in the game or interview.  Do I say that and then live self-absorbed, or can I love them in kindness and self-forgetfulness?

As Unto the Lord.

Do I strive for excellence?  Do I work hard to do the best I can?  If Jesus needed to hear the game or if Jesus used my station as an alarm clock would He be served well?  If God was my boss, and He truly is whether or not I see that, would He be pleased with my work?

"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.  You are serving the Lord Christ." Colossians 3:23-24

Do I do my job as unto the Lord?  Can I interview the mayor, introduce the next song, announce a birthday and tell my listener that the soccer ball sailed wide left as if Jesus was sitting in the car listening and the Father was writing my checks on the 15th and 1st?

How Would Jesus Call a Game or Host a Show?

I'm in the tail end of reading The Character of Christ: The Fruit of the Spirit in the Life of Our Savior by Jonathan Landry Cruse.  In the book he argues that the best way to incorporate the fruit of the Spirit into our lives is to marvel at the way Jesus exhibited them in His life.  I agree and for the last, couple I think, years I have had the question "How would Jesus call a game?" in my head.

Is the fruit of the Spirit evident in my work?  Is there any evidence that the Holy Spirit indwells me as I speak into a microphone?

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control..." Galatians 5:22-23

Do I love well?  Do I have joy oozing out of me?  Do I cause peace or division?  Am I patient and do I encourage others to be patient?  Are my words and evaluations kind and charitable? Is my work a source of goodness or simply slop?  Am I faithful and are my words reliable and trustworthy?  Are my broadcasts gentle, especially to the lowly?  Do I have self-control or is my tongue a burning fire that will get me in trouble at a moment's notice? 

Provision

Vocations, both paid and unpaid, are a mean's of God's care for you and your dependents.  Do I thank God for my paycheck or do I believe that I earned it on my own?  Who do I think designed me and gave me my abilities?

"But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." 1 Timothy 5:8

"... If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat." 2 Thessalonians 3:10

God has given me provision that is there for me and my family through the means of my vocation He's called me.  May I never disregard His means of provision and demand that He take care of me and my family another way.  God has called me to a sentinel's post in His kingdom that I might work there and work there well.

What about your vocation?  Can you run through some of the template I am trying out on myself and see how you're doing?  

I occasionally get asked if I want to leave my job at a secular station in order to work for a Christian radio station or for a local church.  But I thank God that He, in His wisdom and goodness, does not have such a stringent and bold line between secular and sacred as we do.  I thank God that there is a way to please Him in all places we find ourselves placed.  As for me, I plan to serve where I have been called until the calling changes, if it ever does.  May you resolve to follow God's calling on you and do the same today.