One blessing about being a teacher is that I have a sense of vocational calling every day. I never feel a lack of purpose in my job. One problem that arises from this, however, is that my sense of purpose can become an overwhelming burden: There are too many students who need a quality relationship with an adult; there are too many students who are failing my class; there are too many students whom I am not challenging enough academically; there are too many colleagues that need encouragement; there are too many lesson plans that I need to improve. The problem with this mentality is that I become the center of everyone's world. The reality is that I cannot possibly meet all of the needs I encounter each day, and I need to be ok with that.
Another aspect of the immense purpose I feel through teaching is that while I am on vacations from school I begin to feel listless and purposeless. The summer is especially bad--I actually begin to feel unproductive, guilty, and a little worthless as a result of being away from school. Certainly this is not healthy, but it gives me insight into the lives of people, like the 40+ year-old professional athlete riddled with arthritis, who just cannot give up their careers even when they should have long ago.
Part of me thinks that I need to cultivate a more comprehensive sense of purpose--one that is not situationally dependent. It seems like my purpose shouldn't wax and wane with the school year, that it should be independent of any environment in which I find myself. While that sounds good, I can't help but think that it might be a bit simplistic and it becomes problematic if we take that thinking to extremes: Should I feel purposeful if I work to make handguns for a firearm company? Should I feel a sense of purpose if I work to make money for a company that exploits workers or the environment in the developing world? Should I feel a sense of purpose if I am a CIA assassin?
Perhaps the reality is that there is a feedback loop between purpose and vocation. Each informs the other; each challenges the other; each molds the other.
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I believe Christians should seek God's calling to a profession. If we do that, and then answer that call, we do have a real sense of purpose in what we do and even where we do it. Re your column, I doubt God calls believers to be CIA assassins, so perhaps that isn't the best example. I also think a lot of believers decide what they want to do without consulting God and end up in professions that perhaps aren't so meaningful to them. My observations, however, are that God DOES call some people to the business world and to great financial success so they can be generous givers and fund missions and other endeavors aligned with God's purposes. Just a few thoughts.............
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