Spiritual Hiccups - You Want Me To Do What?

What are you supposed to do with your life?  What am I supposed to do with mine?  Those are pretty fundamental questions that get expressed in many ways.  We ask small children, "What do you want to do/be when you grow up.  When they get older the question may change to "What are you going to major in at college?"  People go to career centers for batteries of tests covering aptitude, inclination, interest, personality, and so on, all in an effort to understand what sort of career would be a good fit for them. 

As a Presbyterian, I am part of something known as the Reformed Tradition, a branch of the Protestant Reformation that traces itself back to Geneva and John Calvin.  This tradition has long spoken of all Christians having a "vocation" or a "calling."  The idea is that we are each fitted and suited for some work that is pleasing to God, that will be fulfilling for us, and will be beneficial for the larger community. 

Frederick Buechner, a Presbyterian pastor who is better known for his short stories, is often quoted as saying, "The place to which God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."  I've used this quote myself on a number of occasions, but I sometimes wonder if it gets misapplied in a very individualistic age focused on immediate gratification.  Looking at some biblical example of call, can we speak of them producing "great gladness," at least in the sense that many people are likely to hear that phrase?

In today's reading from Acts, the Apostle Paul says, "And now, as a captive to the Spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me. But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace."  I do think that Paul would have been able to use the phrase "great gladness" to describe the joy he had of serving Jesus and the new life he discovered in that service, but I wonder how many of us would.

When you think about what you are "supposed" to do with your life, what factors do you consider?  If you are considering careers or a job change, what elements do you weigh?  We all need money to live on so most of us consider the salary.  We don't want to be miserable, so most of us look for something we think we might like doing.  But is our own sense of what will make us happy a trustworthy guide?  Do Jesus' words, "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it," perhaps suggest that our own inclinations are sometimes suspect?  Might the "deep gladness" Buechner speaks of be something quite different from what I like or what seems attractive to me?

If we listen for the "world's deep hunger" and for what God would have us do, do we perhaps find ourselves pulled toward something that might not, at first, seem appealing?  And how do we bring something other than self with its self-ish desires to figuring out what God wants us to do?

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