Don’t Know What You’re Doing After Graduation? Good.Sample

Why is it good you don’t know what you’re doing after graduation?

Because not knowing “what you’re doing next” allows you to focus on more important things.

Who you’re becoming is exponentially more important than what job you’re doing. Vocation is more about becoming—becoming people whose lives are structured by prayer, community, and Scripture. As it turns out, Christian spiritual disciplines (such as community, prayer, study, and Sabbath) aren’t tools we use to figure out our vocation; they are part of the vocation. Or, put another way, these disciplines are more central to your vocation than your career.

Our culture prizes productivity. One of the first questions we ask upon meeting someone is “What do you do?” It’s what someone does that defines them—more specifically, what they do for pay. Of course, work is good, including paid work. But we tend to make our occupation into our identity.

And in Christian circles, we often spiritualize this. We conflate our paid work with our purpose in life. When we talk about our “vocation,” our calling, what we mean is our career. This conflation is, at best, unhelpful. We need to expand our definition of vocation to disentangle it from our cultural preoccupation with careers.

The best place to start is with Scripture. How does the Bible speak of vocation? When you look for the language of vocation, of calling, in Scripture, you won’t find much reference to jobs or careers. Instead, this language refers to the calling all Christians share: to follow Christ.

Let me be clear: I’m not trying to demean anyone’s occupation or pretend that earning money doesn’t matter. Saying something is more important doesn’t mean the other thing is unimportant. We’re talking better and best, not good and bad. But career, money, and profession all tend to dominate. They take up all the space we let them. Unchecked, they will always claim ultimate importance, demand our greatest attention, and, ultimately, become our identity. If we succeed, we will no longer depend on God.

In Luke 12, Jesus tells a parable of a rich man who said to himself, “‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:19-21). A bit of agnosticism about the future, a bit of holy indifference, a bit of impracticality, might save us.