Upside-Down Spirituality by Chad Bird

Author:Chad Bird
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Living/Spiritual Growth;Christian life;REL012120;REL012070
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2019-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

God’s Special Purpose for Our Lives

When I taught at seminary, I can’t tell you how many casual conversations I had that went something like this:

Me: “So, how’d you end up here? What’s your backstory?”

Them: “Well, for years I’d been working for such-and-such a company, making good money, advancing in the business. But I always felt like something was missing. There was this gap in my soul, you know, that my job just couldn’t seem to fill. Like I’d somehow gone astray from the special purpose God had chosen for me. I wanted to do something more important with my life, something that helped more people. So, after years of procrastinating, I took the plunge. We sold our home, I quit my job, and here we are.”

These conversations usually happened at the beginning of the academic year, over coffee, when incoming students met with professors. The plunge the students took was indeed a monumental one. Most were married, many with families, so their decision to uproot their lives and move across the country to study for the ministry affected more than just themselves. For the next two or three years the student’s nose would be to the theological grindstone. If all went well, they’d graduate and be sent out to a congregation (or sometimes two or three congregations) to serve as their minister.

At some point during their ministry, most pastors fully realize a truth that they began to learn while at seminary: that God has no special, unique, individualized purpose for their life that they had somehow gone astray from before attending seminary. There was no gap in their soul that the ministry would plug. Being a pastor would not be something more important than being an accountant, police officer, or elementary school teacher. If they had stayed where they lived and not moved to the seminary, God would not have been disappointed with them. Yes, now they are pastors. So, yes, now God has called them into this vocation. But had they remained in their hometown, doing what they’d been doing, that would have been fine too. The Lord of the church would have used them there, in those callings, to serve their neighbor.

Going to seminary was a good choice. But not going would have been an equally good choice.

In other words, our seminary students achieved a failure: they failed to find fulfillment and purpose in what they thought would be the “ideal vocation” for them. The perfect job. The fairy-tale career. They learned a valuable lesson: that what we do for a living is not our life. How we make our money is not what makes us. What’s listed on our résumé can never fulfill us, no matter how much money we make, how many people we help, how vitally important we think our work is. We need something else for that.

John Barnett, an Orthodox Christian, says that many years ago, the abbot of a monastery helped him understand this. He was at a point in his life when he was at a crossroads, anguishing over major decisions.

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