MY CAREER – GOD’S CALLING
All Christians are to do God’s work
WHEN I WAS a young Christian, I had asked God boldly: “God, send me to wherever you want me to go and I shall obey. Call me to your service.” It would have been easier if God had spoken audibly, provided a “sign” or delivered an engraved invitation. Both Abraham and Jonah were lucky. Their call was loud and clear.
Like most of us though, I struggled for a good part of my working life with the question as to whether I was really called to do God’s work. Being “called” is more often than not associated with becoming a pastor or an evangelist or doing missionary work in a faraway land.
The terminology “God’s service” had me confused me for a while but I began to realise that Scripture, whether you read it literally or otherwise, teaches that all Christians are called to serve Christ and do God’s work, regardless of the career path we may choose or find ourselves in.
We must also not conclude that a person who is called to be a teacher, priest or king has a “higher” calling than a person called to minister to prisoners, lepers or the sick, any more than we should think that the secular career path is somehow less elevated than one related directly with the church. We are all called to do God’s work and are equal in God’s eyes.
With the benefit of hindsight, and having grown up with God over more than two decades, I have three important doubt-dispelling discoveries experienced first-hand to share.
The first, whatever your calling, God will equip you for the work. Years of study in school and university had provided me with career knowledge while years of studying the Bible and interaction with fellow Christians and pastors gave me a sense of grounding for God’s work. Needless to say, no amount of book reading can ever replace the experience gained in the actual doing of God’s work.
The second discovery: God is truly ever-present. I have now been working as a lawyer for 18 years with 10 earlier years in the corporate world where the Lord had seen it fit to have many people pass my way. As I also do family matters as a lawyer today, it has given me the opportunity to listen to the hurts and pains of so many. But that in turn has also given me the chance to speak of the Lord’s grace and of His forgiveness. I could comfort those who are believers with the reminder that God is sovereign, and our lives, when left with Him, will be kept safe for all eternity. I am in God’s service every working day!
The third discovery: do what you are called to do, then leave the rest to God. The secular marketplace can be a treacherous one, filled with many whose sole aim in life is to make as much money as possible, one where Machiavellian values outweigh altruism, where self is constantly put before others. Mammon rears his ugly head with thoughts only of material comfort and distractions that money can buy.
Such attitudes are sometimes reflective of even professing Christians. But all is not lost – God is always in control. Where words fail to convince the hearer, we can pray for God’s intervention and forgiveness.
Whether we work as lawyers or bus drivers, plumbers or doctors, politicians or pastors, God always hears our prayers and is there for those who have not heard, to hear; for those who have heard, to do; and those who are doing, to be courageous and faithful servants.
Eddie Koh is a lawyer in private practice and currently Chairman of the Local Church Executive Committee (LCEC) of Covenant Community Methodist Church. He is also a member of the Board of Management of Methodist Girls’ School.