Vocation and holy work

For it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13

Dear Friends in Christ,

This week, in our common reading of “Liturgy of the Ordinary,” the author writes about reconciliation, and how our reconciling with God and each other mirrors Jesus’ work of giving himself for us to reconcile us to him. When we give of ourselves to reconcile, we are participating in the love that God has for us, and sharing that kind of love with others. She also writes about vocation—about how God sometimes calls us to particular commitments and actions, including in our employment. You hear the word “vocal” in “vocation.” Vocation as a Christian idea has to do with God’s calls to us. Responding to God’s vocation is another way we participate in God’s grace to the world.

God may call you to be a priest. But God might also call you to be a welding salesman (I speak from the weird experience of both callings). Selling welding machines, or nursing or plumbing or tending a family or tiling floors or teaching or accounting all can be holy vocations. God calls each of us to allow him to work in us and through us wherever we may be. And God certainly needs good businessmen and women and good politicians and good mechanics, serving him in the world. Good retirees can serve God well (or poorly, as they choose). There may be some work that is inherently wrong (drug dealing and human trafficking comes to mind). But service in the church is not the only holy work. In faithful response to God, God makes all our good work holy.

What holy work has God called you to do? How can you be more aware of God’s presence and activity in your work? How do you discern God’s calls to you in professional life? As a Christian steward of your job or your primary role in life, how do you serve God and honor God in those roles?

What a joyful blessing that we can find God and share God in all parts of our lives!

Yours in Christ,

-Tom