By Janelle Higdon
Tips for choosing a career-path as a Christian
Feeling intimidated about choosing your calling? It feels heavy, right?
You might be asking the big questions. Why am I here, Lord? What do You want me to do? What should I do with my life?
Rest assured that you’re not alone in this season of confusion. It is 100% normal to wonder what major you should choose, what career path you should pursue, and how your faith affects your decision.
First things first: Pursue Christ
As a Christian, your number one calling is to abide in Jesus and to work for Him.
“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.” Colossians 3:23-24
Let this encourage you as you evaluate your future. Know that wherever you end up, that is where you can serve the Lord with all your heart.
North Central University faculty, Bill Tibbetts, encourages students to keep this perspective in mind: “It’s easy to forget that our vocational ‘calling’ is not our first priority in God’s kingdom. In our passion and zeal to understand the impending journey and purpose, it’s easy to make it our idol. While it is very important to Him that we do not neglect our gift of service, it is even more critical to realize what our first calling entails.
“Before all other things, you were called into a relationship with our sovereign Creator. Second, we are called into a relationship with our newly adopted family. When we place these two things as our first concern, it makes trusting how and what that looks like (your vocation) much easier.”
Choosing a major and a career path
It might take you several years to find the major and the career that feel like the right fit. Follow these simple tips as you evaluate your options.
- Explore, explore, explore
You’ll never know unless you try, right? So try many things. Take classes in a variety of areas of interest and meet with professors from other departments.
As Shakira would say in Zootopia, Try Everything. Or at least try lots of things. - Pray and listen
Spending time in prayer and asking God for guidance is essential to your Christian walk, and therefore to your evaluation of your calling. While your prayers may or may not result in an audible instruction (i.e. “go, therefore, and open a doughnut shop”), they will draw you closer to God and to His will for your life.Faculty member and former Sonicflood lead singer Jeff Deyo says, “It should be clear to us and to those around us that God works most powerfully through us when we do that thing we do–that thing he made us to do. Where passion, talent, and favor converge, we typically find the vocational calling God has assigned to us.”
Resources about calling
- The Call: Finding and Fulfilling Your Life’s Central Purpose, by Oss Guiness
- Bible verses about calling
- Calling and Vocation: Overview from Theology of Work
