Of particular interest to me is how our passions, for a season or for our entire lives, diverge from our employment. How are identity, calling, vocation, and work related to each other?
Let’s start with identity.
As I describe in The Shape of Joy, identity is rooted in your cosmic mattering and your existential significance. You are a child of God. You are God’s beloved. This is who you are.
Importantly for the purposes of this reflection, your identity is separate from your calling, vocation, and work. Making, monitoring, and maintaining this distinction is vital for your mental and spiritual health. As I discuss in The Shape of Joy, this distinction is needed to secure your identity in the midst of vocational confusion, career failure, and unfulfilling work. Your identity as God’s beloved is secure when you cannot clearly discern a career or vocation. Your identity as God’s beloved is secure when you experience career failure and setback. And so on. You fail to get promoted. No one buys your book. Your startup fails. You get let go from your dream job. You have to work an unfulfilling job to pay the bills.
Basically, your mattering, value, and worth, rooted in your identity in Christ, must be distinct from your vocation and work. Knowing yourself as God’s beloved stabilizes your identity when your vocation and career experience desolation. I am taking a cue here from Howard Thurman. In his book Jesus and the Disinherited, Thurman describes how an identity rooted in Christ was historically able to protect the mental health of African Americans in the face of prejudice, discrimination, marginalization, oppression, and violence. Thurman writes:
The core of the analysis of Jesus is that man is a child of God...This idea--that God is mindful of the individual--is of tremendous import...In this world the socially disadvantaged man is constantly given a negative answer to the most important personal questions upon which mental health depends: "Who am I? What am I?"
The first question has to do with a basic self-estimate, a profound sense of belonging, of counting. If a man feels that he does not belong in a way in which it is perfectly normal for others to belong, then he develops a deep sense of insecurity. When this happens to a person, it provides the basic material for what the psychologist calls the inferiority complex...The awareness of being a child of God tends to stabilize the ego and results in a new courage, fearlessness, and power. I have seen it happen again and again.
[Seeing oneself as a child God establishes] the ground of personal dignity, so that a profound sense of personal worth can absorb the fear reaction. This alone is not enough, but without it, nothing else is of value. The first task is to get the self immunized against the most radical results of the threat of violence. When this is accomplished, relaxation takes the place of churning fear. The individual now feels that he counts, that he belongs.
This is what I mean when I say identity secures our mental health in the midst of vocational setback and career disappointment, and why identity has to be kept separate from calling, vocation, and work. Otherwise, our experience of failure will begin to impinge upon our sense of worth. We are tempted to identify our significance with our success, especially as it relates to work. As I describe in The Shape of Joy, we come to think our value is something we must “win” and “secure” rather than something we receive as a gift, and therefore as something we can never lose.
Let's turn from identity to calling.
Our calling concerns the particular and unique way we are to participate in God’s kingdom and mission in repairing, healing, and restoring the broken world. Calling can involve our employment, but calling is distinct from our employment. In fact, most of our calling does not involve what we do to pay the bills. For example, if you asked me to describe my calling, my work as a college professor would not be at the top of the list. I would say that my calling in life has been, and is, to be a good husband, a good father, a good son, a good brother, a good neighbor, a good colleague, a good mentor, a good friend, and a good member of my church. I enjoy my work, but I would not say I was “called” to be a college professor. Mostly because I could have done other things with my career, and there is always the possibility of a career change. Consequently, while my career might change, my calling never changes and is transportable no matter where life might take me. No matter where I am, I can participate in the work of God. And most of that does not involve my employment.
Turning now to our employment.
When we experience a deep congruence with our employment we call that a vocation. Many people, however, perhaps even most people, do not experience their work as their vocation. Work is experienced more as a job. Intermediate between job and vocation would be a career.
Importantly for my reflections here, one’s calling can be lived out no matter the employment. One can fulfill their calling to participate in God’s kingdom and mission while working a job or pursuing a vocation. Calling transcends employment.
Relatedly, vocation also transcends employment. Our deepest passions, where we come most alive, might not be valued by the marketplace. Your passion might be acting, writing, singing, or art. Getting paid for those passions, however, can be difficult. Thus, while your vocation might be acting, writing, singing, or art, you do some other work to pay your bills. If you find that work fulfilling, you will call it a career. If you find that work unfulfilling, you will call it a job.
A theological reflection to be added here is that, due to the Fall, as creation continues to groan (Romans 8.19-23), our work can be haunted by desolation. As the Lord says to Adam:
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”
The point is that, while all work is dignified, work is not a reliable or durable location of fulfillment and flourishing. Some people do experience their work as a vocation, while others experience work as sweat and toil. Necessary and honorable work, but effortful and exhausting. Many find themselves in between vocation and job, what I'm calling a career. And it's is precisely here—in our experiences of vocations, careers, and jobs—where distinguishing between identity, calling, and work becomes important. Specifically, when toiling in a job far from our passions, I can still find ways to participate in the mission of God. I can labor honestly and with integrity. Fellow employees and customers can become objects of service and friendship. Moreover, the dreariness of my work does not affect my identity in Christ. Nor does working a low-status job diminish my worth. In the eyes of God, there is no difference between a bus driver and a doctor, between a janitor and a Fortune 500 CEO.
All of this sets up some important insights that young people should keep in mind.
First, vocation is not the same as employment because your passions might not be monetizable. In fact, trying to monetize your vocation might be a huge mistake. In such instances you should seek good and stable employment, a career, while pursuing your vocation independently of your paycheck.
Second, calling transcends employment. It is a blessing if your calling deeply connects with your employment, but your calling can be pursued anytime and anywhere, in your vocation, during your career, or on the job.
Third, all work is dignified and honorable, even if that work is not your vocation. In fact, laboring with integrity in unfulfilling work is part of our calling. As Paul shared with believers who found themselves working as slaves:
Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
