A letter to my son from a few years ago before he chose to go into ministry, full-time.
Son,
You are near the end of your middle-class cultural walk into adulthood. You are about to complete college and are nearing the end of that train of associated expectations. It has taken you 21 years to get to this point. The transition is complete. The job is uniquely yours to navigate the next 60 years without expectations from your mother and me. We wish you the best, but you still have to sort out one thing before you start your career. What is your vocation?
Your mother and I took heavy ownership of decision-making for the first 14 or so. We began sharing that job for the next few years; then, we left most of the choices in your hands for the last four. In the future, you are now uniquely making the choices. To that extent, you have earned my first-ever written discourse on the disparity between vocation and occupation. Sorting out the choice of vocation trumps any options you will make regarding the choice of occupation, employer, or job.
Shakespeare started uncovering the concept of vocation when he said, “A man’s contribution to his life story is continually dominated by a superior external power.” For folks who don't take the time to sort out the difference between vocation and occupation, the superior external power becomes their employer. That isn't always a bad decision, but it is often shallow. For some of your friends, their spousal choice will take ownership of their occupational and vocational choices. For some unfortunates, their addictions picked them. I want you to spend time to sort out the difference before you are pulled off to an office or manufacturing floor for 40 years, never knowing why you did it.
For those who ask, they discover that God guides their vocation choice. Vocation is, after all, a calling, not a choice. That all starts with a simple question that your schools don't teach you how to answer.
How can you follow a call if you don’t know the Caller?
You are off to a good start. You appear to be aware that you are not an external superpower. You also appear to be aware that your God loves you and has a better plan for you than Mom or I ever will. You are set up to discover your vocation and calling. Shakespeare didn’t see wisdom in finishing his thought. He could have concluded that this “superior external power” was the Caller. He stopped short of talking of faith.
This calling from God is called your vocation. Your calling defines who you are regarding how you use your free time and days.
I will use my circumstances as a model. I am a teacher and a thought provoker. I am a leader. I make people uncomfortable by encouraging them to expand their horizons. Those attributes will not leave me as I age. That is my calling. That said, I will not remain a fast runner as I enter my final years, but I will still be able to write and tell stories. That is why I cannot claim that my vocation is that of an elite age-group athlete. That label is temporary and contingent on outstanding health. A man's calling isn't temporary or contingent.
I empathize with your circumstances. Your generation has blurred the line between occupation and vocation, feeling the two words are synonyms. They aren't. My challenge to you is to spend quiet time with the Caller to receive a vision for your calling before you take the final steps to select an occupational path.
Here are the three differences:
1) Vocation doesn’t change based on your occupational choices. Occupation will repeatedly change over your lifetime. The best athletes often become coaches. The best drive-through attendants become store managers. That path of succession defines them as occupations. Vocations don't change.
2) Vocation isn’t dependent on the choices others make or choose not to make. Occupation does. A manager may or may not hire you to sell software. That doesn't mean you aren't a poet, or you aren't a musician.
3) Vocation’s successes and failures don’t use the same measurement references that occupation does. Vocational success is measured by an internal reward that no one but you and the Caller fully understand. Occupational success relies on an outsider’s feedback and changes in compensation to determine success and failure.
My question to you, at the deepest level, is, what does your heart say the Caller has given you as a vocation? To help you answer that, does it meet these requirements?
Vocations last a lifetime. There is no retirement. Here is what comes to mind when I think of a vocation.
Your vocation often tears down barriers that occupations have. For example, some teachers instruct only specific subjects, whereas some lead their students without the structure of a subject. Some teachers require a specific environment, like a lab or an athletic field. Others can teach anywhere. I remember listening to one football coach say he could prepare a team for a game using a Walmart parking lot because he could coach up anyone in any space. He was a vocational coach, not an occupational one.
Another important attribute is the connection between satisfaction and compensation. Satisfaction from your vocation does not correlate with compensation. Income is not a requirement for a fulfilling vocation. For example, the Coastal Carolina coach who started their football program began with a contracted salary of $1/year. He describes that first year as one of his life's favorites. His satisfaction was unrelated to what the world told him he was worth. x
For many of us who understand our vocation, our occupations do not match and are sometimes unrelated. My job as an IT leader was irrelevant to my vocation. I had opportunities to teach, but they were not as prolific as those in other occupations.
Spending time with God to discover your vocation cannot be overstated. It may not change your direction of occupational selection, but it will help you answer the question, "What am I meant to do while I am on this earth?" Good for you if your vocation and your occupation are related, but remember that even Jesus was a carpenter.
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