VIDEO: Did You Miss Your Vocation?

Mark Labberton, the president of Fuller Seminary and our personal friend published an incredibly important book, Called. Mark Roberts, primary author of The High Calling's Daily Reflections, felt so strongly about the book that he commissioned several videos to help bring Labberton’s ideas to as many people as possible.

Transcript: I think the question we have to grapple with is "What do I make of the Bible's teaching about satisfaction and fulfillment in a culture driven by success?" The tendency will be in a North American upper middle class culture especially to say "My call must be fulfillment, it must be success, and if it could also be fame, and if it could be money, then it would be even better."

But what if it turns out to not be fame, not be success, not be money---it's just a challenge, and you've lived it out quietly and faithfully? But it does't bring rewards. It didn't have the yield that you expected. Did you miss your vocation?

How do I find the job that will give me the identity that I want when the gospel says no job will ever give you that identity that you want. And the only identity that will finally satisfy you is really the identity of knowing that you are beloved; that your life matters; that your love is consequential in the world; and that your decisions and your actions and your whole life of worship is something that is meant to register in the real world. Those things all really matter. So does the job that we do. So does the work of our hands and our minds and our bodies. But we come to those questions now not needing to fulfill our identity. We come to them enacting our identity.

The message of our culture is "find your vocation and become a success." The measure of how the Bible would talk about vocation is "find your vocation and live with faithful abandonment to the grace and mercy of God."