Career Fair

Even as a small child, we are continually asked, "What are you going to be when you grow up?"

"Geez. I'm six year's old. I'm really torn, ya know? Either I want to be a Doctor or a fire truck...I just can't decide."

What's with the continual obsession with occupations? Is that really what defines us? So whether I grow up to be a doctor or a vehicle, is one better than the other? Is one serving God more than the other? Was I designed to do a certain position in the working force, or can I just pick and choose?

A mentor in my life, Rich Irwin, is the CEO of a large company with some 800 employees in Pittsburgh. He is a man of hard work and integrity. He told me once, "I don't understand everyone's obsession with a career. Where do they get this nonsense from? I have been working for 35 years and have never had a career. I simply have a job. I work to provide for my family."

Yet we continually talk to young people so obsessed with their 'careers'. What the hell is that? It's us trying to place our identity in something. Trying to define ourselves by the way we pay our bills.

I hear so many 'up and coming' youth explain their long titles and important jobs when asked what they do. I was with Mr. Irwin countless times when someone asked what he did for a living. Did he spout off "CEO" or "President" or something impressive? Nope. He would almost always simply say he works with senior living.

Maybe this is all to easy for me to say because I do nothing. I'm a vagabond, wandering the earth trying to figure things out. But I'm guilty of all these thoughts while working Commercial Development. So in the end of 2009 , I quit.

I quit in search of....

And boy is it hard to find something when you are not sure exactly what you are searching for. I brainstormed every possible career or way to live my life and all the options came up short. All flawed and broken in some fashion. How frustrating?! Propose any career path to me, and I would tell you a million reasons why it would not be the end all, why it would not satisfy.

Then like a board in the face, the Lord, said "You arrogant Prick!" (Ok, maybe he didn't say it like that. But close enough.) "Do you honestly believe any of what you do matters, you conceited child!" And instead of feeling offended and put-off, I felt relieved. Of course I can't pick a career that shapes and defines me! I am supposed to be defined by one thing and one thing alone. We think the things of this world bear so much weight on eternity.

What job I do to pay my bills for the next five years is not going to matter on judgement day as much as the state of my heart. And what a wicked and sinful state that is. That should be my career. I should be a garbage man and dedicate the rest of my days to throwing away the trash inside myself.

It will take arduous effort, but we must find away to get over ourselves and find ourselves in Him. He is all that matters. Nothing makes sense without Him. All things makes sense with Him.