I am pleased to announce that our college ministry, The Quest is helping host Rob Bell on the Sex God Tour of six university campuses.
I will write more about this event as it gets closer, but we have been excited for a while.
See you Thursday, March 8 at UCLA
Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation is one of those books where if you are someone who underlines things when you read, well then you will have a very hard time deciding what not to underline. There are so many great sections in the book and it has been very impactful on my life as I have stated before.
One of the things that I love about the book the most is Parker’s acknowledgement that we live within the tension of both our limitations and possibilities, our strengths and weaknesses. A lot of books on “calling” stress the idea or concept that we are able to do anything and everything we want to do, without recognizing the fact that we are sometimes limited. That sometimes our true self, in all its authenticness is limited in what it can do. We do not like to believe that I know. Some may find this very paralyzying, while others may find it freeing. I have fallen under both categories. I used to believe it a weakness that I could not do certain things, and instead I just tried harder and harder. But I have come to now believe that recognizing our limitations is a gift, and instead of closing doors on us, frees us up to move in the right direction.
Part of the battle in acknowledging our limitations is wrapped up in our identity. If we come to the place where we can’t do certain things or we feel like the doors have shut that often most directly affects our identity and what we believe about ourselves. What we believe others think of us. What we believe God thinks about us. Our inability to live within the tension of both limitations and possibilities, strengths and weaknesses, is often our inability to believe that our identity rests in our relationship with Jesus Christ, rather than in the things we do.
I believe very strongly that we are most free when our identity rests in our relationship with Jesus Christ, and our vocation comes out of the knowledge of that relationship. Rather than the reversal that we often do. We do not have a vocation and then come to God and say, “This is who I am.” Rather, we are who we are (Parker’s true self) when we are in relationship with Jesus Christ.
Let me leave you with an extended quote from Palmer that I think speaks more succinctly to what I am trying to convey.
“Everything in the universe has a nature, which means limits as well as potentials, a truth well known by people who work daily with the things of the world. Making pottery, for example, involves more than telling the clay what to become. The clay presses back on the potter’s hands, telling her what it can and cannot do–and if she fails to listen, the outcome will be both frail and ungainly. Engineering involves more than telling materials what they must do. If the engineer does not honor the nature of the steel or the wood or the stone, his failure will go beyond aesthetics: the bridge or the building will collapse and put human life in peril.
The human self also has a nature, limits as well as potentials. If you seek vocation without understanding the material you are working with, what you build with your life will be ungainly and may well put lives in peril, your own and some of those around you. “Faking it” in the service of high values is no virtue and has nothing to do with vocation. It is an ignorant, sometimes arrogant, attempt to override one’s nature, and it will always fail.
Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic selfhood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks–we will also find our path of authentic service in the world. True vocation joins self and service, as Frederick Buechner asserts when he defines vocation as ‘the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.’” (Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer, pp. 15-16)
Over the course of this last year I have become increasingly more interested in the topic of Positive Youth Development or PYD, both from a theoretical and practitioner standpoint. This concept can be found in many arenas of study, but I have been most exposed to it from a theological and psychological standpoint and I’m very attracted to it. The idea that in working with youth (i.e. youth ministry, community mental health, etc.) we emphasize the positive aspects of development, rather than focusing on youth and their problems is very appealing and helpful. We too often see the youth in this country and many cultures looked upon as having problems that need to be fixed, rather than encouraging positive developments and helping kids achieve.
I know that Fuller Theological Seminary has been on the forefront of much of this study in the theological and psychological fields. You can find this concept in the work of practitioners such as Chap Clark who is a very influential voice in youth ministry.
Yesterday in one of my classes we had a great lecture and conversation with Cynthia King-Guffey who is the Executive Director of Thrive Foundation for Youth. It was great to hear from her and the work that they are doing.
“We arrive in this world with birthright gifts–then we spend the first half of our lives abandoning them or letting other disabuse us of them. As young people, we are surrounded by expectations that may have little to do with who we really are, expectations held by people who are not trying to discern our selfhood but to fit us into slots. In families, schools, workplaces, and religious communities, we are trained away from true self toward images of acceptability; under social pressures like racism and sexism our original shape is deformed beyond recognition; and we ourselves, driven by fear, too many often betray true self to gain the approval of others.” (Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer, pp. 12)
As we continue to look at Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer, I was really struck by this quote of his. At the age of 32 I’m just now beginning to realize how much of what I do and have done is driven by the pressure to fit in. By the pressure to please others. By the pressure to perform. By the pressure to climb to the top. A lot of those expectations drove me to do some really great things, but as I reflect more on my life, those great things have not always been congruent with who I am, or what Parker would refer to as one’s true self.
As the son of a pastor I was slotted early on to continue the vocation of ministry. Those were not the expectations of my father or probably most of my family, but there were expectations from those around me. I think that is what drove me early on to enter into ministry, but that is hopefully what no longer keeps me there. Confession: It is only after some extensive self-searching, work with my therapist, spiritual mentors, etc. have I come to embrace my “birthright gifts” and become less concerned with the expectations of others.
I have written on the topic of identity in other blog posts, and especially what Henri Nouwen has to say about it. But I’m continually struck by the scene in Mark 1:9-11, where the Spirit descends from heaven at the baptism of Jesus, and the voice of His Father, says, “You are my Son, with whom I am well pleased.” What is striking about that scene? As Nouwen and others point out is that the Father was pleased with His Son before He performed any of the ministry that we know Him for and have shaped His identity around. Before any miracles, healings, casting out of demons, teachings, etc., the Father was well pleased with the Son.
As Christians we often find our worth and our identity based upon our performances or the things we have done. Think about what usually comes out of our mouth when someone asks about us: we give our names, what we do, etc. Nothing really about who we are. Our identity is most often not formed outside of or away from the things we do or the expectations around them.
Questions:
What would our lives look like if we knew that our heavenly Father was well pleased with who we are…even outside of anything we have done?
How often do we come to God wanting to gain our identity and acceptance by the things we do?
How often do we conform to the slots and expectations of others based on our performances, rather than finding our identity in our relationship with Jesus Christ?
Scot McKnight has a good blurb about Dan Kimball’s new book They Like Jesus but Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations. Scot summarizes some of Dan’s thoughts after Dan decided to get out of his office and stop hanging out with Christians all week. Here are some of his observations that he wrestles with in his new book:
1. The church is an organized religion with a political agenda.
2. The church is judgmental and negative.
3. The church is dominated by males and oppresses females.
4. The church is homophobic.
5. The church arrogantly claims all other religions are wrong.
6. The church is full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally.
One of the things that I love most about college ministry is going to their campuses and hanging out with them at coffee or whatever. Students rarely, if ever come to hang out at church (especially since ours is off the beaten path) so it is necessary to go to their turf. There are things I learn that I would never have a clue about if I was hanging out with them in my office.
Yeah, I’ve been gone from blogging for a long time. Since January 17th. That is my longest break from blogging since I went away on my honeymoon. There were several reasons why I was away: 1) I was very, very sick and pretty much bedridden and out of it for over a week; 2) This is my second to last quarter of my MFT program and it has been absolutely crazy; 3) I had nothing to say 4) Blogging seemed forced, rather than the usual ease it typically was.
But what seemed really evident to me was that the longer I went without blogging the more difficult it was for me. I’ve learned to realize that a lot of my identity comes from my blogging. I know that sounds crazy, but it is true. My identity is shaped by other bloggers; by commenters; by affirmation, etc. Knowing this, it seemed really important that I actually not force blogging, but take the necessary time away from it.
And while I was away I have been reading and exploring the idea of identity and vocation more at length. One of my favorite books on this topic is Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer. I first read the book in 2002 when I was finishing up my M. Div. at Fuller at it greatly impacted me and some of my friends. I have since read it over a couple of times and I’m about to finish it again. It is very powerful.
What I want to do over the next month or so is interact with this book and explore some of his ideas regarding vocation (and I will back to my “normal” blogging as well). Why? Because vocation is such an important aspect of our lives, and most of us wrestle at length with what our “vocation” should be….or what our “calling” truly is. For many people this seems like a very easy choice. But as I explore more of this topic and the interweavings and connection between identity and vocation, I have come to belive that many of us find ourselves in places that aren’t where we truly want to be, or what we want to do.
Parker Palmer makes the insightful comment that:
“True self (this is what Parker also refers to as the “imago dei” in us), when violated, will always resist us, sometimes at great cost, holding our lives in check until we honor its truth.” (pp. 4)
As we find ourselves in very different places in life (graduating from college, looking for jobs, looking for second careers, stuck in a career, etc.) we may find that our identity is being violated. Palmer says:
“The deepest vocational question is not ‘What ought I to do with my life?’ It is the more elemental and demanding ‘Who am I? What is my nature?’”
This is something I have been thinking about and hope to explore with you.
Question: How do we know when we are in the right vocation? When do we know we have found our calling?
I'm a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MDIV, MSMFT, LMFT), and co-facilitate marriage intensives. I also love to write, speak, and run.
Author of The Anxious Christian: Can God Use Your Anxiety for Good? published by Moody Publishers.
To schedule a counseling appointment contact Auxano Counseling at 972-312-8893.
