When we meet someone we haven’t known, we don’t get far in the conversation before we ask, “And what is your job?” Many times we ask the same question another way, “And what do you do?” Hardly ever, but now and then we may ask it, “And what is your vocation?”
We have not thought about it much, if at all: job and vocation are not necessarily the same. Most of us have a job; all of us have a vocation!
If your vocation and your profession are not the same, you are in good company. The most well-known person in our Christian history was Paul who wrote a huge part of the New Testament. His vocation was evangelism and church planting, but he often had to exercise his job as a tent maker.
To make the case more dramatically, consider the Old Testament prophet, Amos. We may know and connect him with the challenging prophetic word, Let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream (Amos 5:24 NIV), but we may have never heard or read his testimony,
“I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ Now then, hear the word of the Lord. (Amos 7:14-16 NIV)
Interestingly not only Amos and Paul a great host of biblical people had a job and a vocation.
Most of us can fulfil our vocation while doing our job.
While we may spend 40 hours a week in our job, our vocation — what God has called us to do — may involve us only a few hours a week. Most of us have a job; all of us have a vocation! God has called to do a particular vocation which may have little or no connection with what we do as our job.
Almost every Sunday, I attend the Lamplighters Sunday School Class at our church in Memphis. The fellowship and mutual caring in that class is a model for the whole church. What has shaped and continues to inspire that class is the teacher. For over forty years, Dr. Jim Eoff has faithfully prepared and taught the Bible to a group that started out as “the young married class,” but now has people most of whom are over 60.
Until he retired a few years ago, Jim’s job was as a pharmacist or a professor, but his vocation has been teaching the Lamplighters.
Like Jim, our specific response to Christ’s call may be teaching Sunday School, or volunteering at the hospital, visiting the sick, doing evangelistic visitation, or working with young people. Most us have a job, but WHAT IS YOUR VOCATION?