How come no asians ever feel called to be plumbers? (2/3)

1 Corinthians 1:26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

God called the weak and despised to be His people, precisely because they were not qualified by the worlds standards, and would be humble, reliant, and in awe of Him. Quite the contrast from the comfortable, self-sufficient careers that many Christian students spend everything to pursue.

Ephesians 4:1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Here are the some of the characteristics of living in a manner worthy of the God's calling for us. Apostle Paul subsequently in v11 does give some examples of actual positions (prophets, evangelists, shepherds, etc.) that God might assign to someone, to equip the rest of the believers (the saints) for the work of ministry.

2 Thessalonians 1:11 To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Worthy of God's calling again, and as the previous verse, nothing about being professionals, but good works of faith by his power that glorifies Christ.

2 Timothy 1:8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, 9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began

Goes even further here, we arrive at our calling not by our own efforts and works but by the grace and purpose of God.

2 Peter 1:5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue,5 and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. 10 Therefore, brothers,be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.

I wonder how is it that young believers would try (often repeatedly) to get into medical/dental/law/etc. school and say it is their calling to dedicate most of their time and energy to it when the scriptures speak nothing of such? I am not seeing doctor or Ph.D or accountant in these passages, but I am seeing humility, gentleness, patience, love, unity, peace, grace, virtue, knowledge of Christ, self-control, steadfastness, godliness.

The thought of career or vocation is not even on the radar in any of the passages on calling. So how is it that so many of us have confused the two? For goodness sake, I myself am an engineer, so I need to ask, can having a prestigious, high paying professional career glorify God?

This all brings back memories of a CCF senior that I met when I first came to Mac. Here are two verses that would explain a lot:

Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

More next week.

How come no asians ever feel called to be plumbers? (1/3)

What our calling is seems to be one of the two most frequent question among young adults, this question of what career does God want me to pursue? (who I am supposed to date being the other popular question, which I have already tackled in previous posts)

I was at a management training course for work once and was sharing about the volunteer pastoring that I do at Westside Hamilton. One of the ladies asked me in front of the class what were the common issues that I counsel undergrads about. I shared about this idea of an identity crisis, that I often hear the question "What am I going to do with my life?!?!". The class reaction was clearly ageist. The younger half nods vigourously and the older half just erupts in "I was that silly at your age too" laughter.

I have observed undergrads, for whatever reason increasingly so over the last ten years, obsess over this idea of calling as a career; a full-blown quarter-life crisis if you will. Many of them then end up pursuing the quarter-life equivalent of a Porsche: a graduate professional degree and job.

This is going to be a shock for some of you. Even though career is often represented as a spiritual topic, the bible has almost nothing to instruct about vocation other than you should have one. In fact the word "calling" is never used in the bible to refer to a career (seriously, do a search. I will go over it next week). It is always a reference to the character and eternal destiny we all should be pursuing as followers of Christ (when used as an abstract concept, not "calling" across the room). God does not seem to care much about our specific vocation. Rather He focuses on who we are, rather than what we are, wherever we go.

Yet forging careers is what most young believers dedicate themselves to, obsessing over professional schools  and persistently applying to one after another, as if they would not fulfill God's destiny for them otherwise. The question of our lives has now become what and where versus who and for whom. We let our significance rest on what we do and where we do it rather than who we are becoming and who we are living for. We build our identities on our careers and our life progress, rather than our character and how we represent our saviour's holiness and grace.

I say asians only because those are the Christians I encounter most, but I have always wondered why there are never any young asian Christians who feel "called" by God to be a garbageman, or a plumber, or a mechanic? Or really any profession other than law, medicine, accounting, engineering, entrepeneurship and all their secure and prestigious off-shoots? Could it be that God has destined all asians to be high-level professionals? That God has told all of us asian young believers to spend most of our time and energy attaining professional statuses?

Or are we being tricked into thinking that God wants us to spend ourselves pursuing what are really just the things of this world?

We will look at "calling" in the scriptures next week.

Dr. House has a Point

A couple of general guidelines to wrap up this topic (for now lol, every year without fail this topic resurrects). These goes for both guys and girls and is most applicable if you are regularly part of a larger faith community such as churches or fellowships, which I hope you are.

Do not start dating or start having one on ones with prospective dates (essentially dating before committing to dating) to try to observe what I outlined in the previous two posts ("I'm just spending time getting to know them" people say).

I cannot begin to count the number of times I have seen those sorts of quasi-trial dates/relationships turn sour and end bitterly when one side gets more sucked in and more emotionally attached than the other. Not just the girls, but I have seen plenty of guys get hurt this way too.

In addition, people consciously (sadly there are playa's in churches too) or subconsciously (simply trying to put their best foot forward), lie about themselves. Girls are notoriously gullible to this, they feel so special when a guy spends more time with them and treats them better than other people. Girls naively think they have found the "real" them. Well guess what, you are going to eventually, likely sooner rather than later, have to deal full time with the "not real" them too!

If you see that the person approaching you treats you significantly different than everyone else, watch out (I advocate that guys should approach girls, not the other way around. If the guy will not even take the risk of rejection for you, to quote a movie, he is just not that into you). No one is trying to outright deceive (well I hope by now you have at least the wisdom to weed out the obvious playa's, male or female), but who does not put their best foot forward and cover up their blemishes, especially when put in a one on one setting when they can look like whatever they want without the possibility of being called out for their cover up?

Rather, try to stay a distance and observe them when they think people are not particularly paying attention, like in group events. Listen to them talk about their friends, their family, their views of God. Watch how they interact with brothers and sisters, with strangers, with people in need. You will get a much more accurate picture of someone by observing them at a distance in public than making your intentions known and having that person, consciously or subconsciously, begin tailor their image to you when you spend time with them.

A great place to see this, as some of you suggested, is at a prayer meeting. Do they reveal their weaknesses and failures to their faith community and ask for support? Do they, both in prayer and in deed, address the needs brought up by others in gentleness and respect? Do they even go? Or pray with brothers and sisters regularly? In the words of an anonymous Australian minister that Jim Cymbala met in Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire:

You can tell how popular a church is by who comes on Sunday morning. You can tell how popular the pastor or evangelist is by who comes on Sunday night. But you can tell how popular Jesus is by who comes to the prayer meeting.

Caution 1: Please do not go to prayer meetings for the sake of finding someone. If you are not praying regularly with brothers and sisters, or at all, you really should apply the above quote to yourself, and figure out where you are really at with God. Because if you do not actually care about God and His kingdom, why attend church events at all? Why limit yourself to dating Christians?

Caution 2: While we are here, I should also warn against church hopping to find spouses. Clearly if you are changing churches solely to find a spouse (I am not saying there are no good reasons to change your faith community, but let us not lie to ourselves here, so many young adults do so for poor reasons, but that is for another post), you have not found, or been satisfied with God's work with your life right now, and we are right back to a lack of contentment and inability to recgonize abundance. Matthew 6:25-34 offers some challenging, yet ultimately comforting words. I will reprint the iconic verse 33 here:

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

I won't be posting the next 2 weeks to prepare for the discipleship workshop that me and Dan are heading up at Campus Challenge 2012 http://goo.gl/rQap7. Let me know if I'll see you there!