Pursuing career and God’s will

“Look at marks she got!”, “He is the top­per”, “Did you hear that he is doing his master’s in the US?”, “She was blessed with an MNC (Multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny) job”, “It’s so great how much you earn now”, “My son stud­ies in Amer­i­ca and my daugh­ter works in Lon­don”, “He is hard-work­ing, God will bless him”—Don’t you hear such state­ments very often? Wouldn’t you also like to belong to those who are suc­cess­ful? But does God think the same way?

Status in the society

The sta­tus in the soci­ety mat­ters great­ly today. Par­ents often pres­sure chil­dren to aim for pres­ti­gious careers—doctors or at least engineers—and to gain admis­sion to top insti­tu­tions (IIT, AIIMS) when study­ing abroad isn’t afford­able. “Hard work” is the slo­gan which accom­pa­nies so many stu­dents through­out their col­lege years. A bachelor’s degree feels insuf­fi­cient with­out pass­ing nation­al exams that bring respect. ^[1] Secur­ing a gov­ern­ment job is wide­ly seen as a major life achieve­ment because this seems to be the high­est aim in life for many around us. Mar­riage choic­es are fre­quent­ly influ­enced by social stand­ing. There are often com­par­isons drawn with oth­ers based on suc­cess and intel­li­gence. This com­par­i­son also encour­ages com­pe­ti­tion and fam­i­ly pres­sure, as par­ents seek to boast about their chil­dren and the chil­dren in turn suf­fer under heavy expec­ta­tions to per­form bet­ter than their peers.

Worldly-minded vs. spiritually focused

Isn’t all this a very earth­ly view of our lives? Per­ma­nent and imper­ish­able val­ues seem to be com­plete­ly for­got­ten. But just these are essen­tial for our inner peace, last­ing joy and ful­fill­ment. A per­son should not be mea­sured by his achieve­ments and suc­cess. What real­ly counts, espe­cial­ly for rela­tion­ships, is hon­esty, faith­ful­ness, reli­a­bil­i­ty, etc. Inner qual­i­ties show much more about a per­son than earth­ly success.

Peo­ple are usu­al­ly very mate­ri­al­is­tic world­ly-mind­ed. But this is a short-sight­ed approach and miss­es the essen­tial things of life. Life is much more than just the vis­i­ble real­i­ty if we are ready to think deep­er. The out­come of striv­ing for mate­r­i­al aims or seek­ing enter­tain­ment and fun is always dis­sat­is­fac­tion. You have prob­a­bly expe­ri­enced that after watch­ing a movie, lis­ten­ing ten times to a song you like, or reach­ing some goal, you feel emp­ty and dis­sat­is­fied. Ulti­mate­ly, what makes peo­ple real­ly joy­ful are good rela­tion­ships and not much mon­ey, mate­r­i­al pos­ses­sions or short-lived fun.

If you had much money …
You could buy medicines—but not health.
You could buy a bed—but not peace­ful sleep.
You could buy a house—but not a home.
You could buy books—but not wisdom.
You could buy entertainment—but not real joy.
You could buy admirers—but not true friends.
You could buy a gold­en idol—but not a rela­tion­ship with God.
You could donate to a charity—but could not buy an entry to heaven.
You could have a com­fort­able life—but not eter­nal life.

Giving back to our parents

But shouldn’t we see it as our respon­si­bil­i­ty to give back to our par­ents what they have pro­vid­ed for us? Most of our par­ents worked hard and self­less­ly only to enable us to attend a good school and col­lege. Isn’t it them to whom we owe every­thing we have achieved? This ques­tion miss­es the most impor­tant point—God.

It is God who enables us and our par­ents to study and work, even to sim­ply live. God is the source of life and with­out Him we can­not do any­thing. So we should see our lives as a present from Him and express our grat­i­tude to him. Every one, includ­ing our par­ents, depends on God. We should give back to God what He has done for us.

Is God interested in what we achieved?

Have you ever thought about whether God is inter­est­ed in what we achieved? Can we impress God with our achieve­ments? The almighty and per­fect, good God does not need any­thing from us. He is the least inter­est­ed in mate­r­i­al or world­ly things. In His self­less love toward us, He does not expect any “giv­ing back”. That’s just what self­less means, to give with­out the wish and even the thought of receiv­ing some­thing in return. What we can nev­er­the­less do to express our grat­i­tude toward God is to lis­ten to His voice and serve Him.

“Without ambitious people, we would still live in the Stone Age”

Is this true? We have to dis­tin­guish between ambi­tions with the only aim to progress in world­ly mat­ters and the effort to improve and ease our lives con­sid­er­ing spir­i­tu­al val­ues. The sec­ond approach takes the emo­tion­al and spir­i­tu­al sides of man into con­sid­er­a­tion and is nev­er one-sided. Not every inven­tion was con­nect­ed with ambi­tions and not even with sober effort. Look­ing back in his­to­ry, dis­cov­er­ies were often made by chance or through a sin­gle strik­ing thought. Long-term inves­ti­ga­tions, explo­rations and tests were often not nec­es­sary. Also, not every inven­tion was use­ful. Nev­er­the­less we can be grate­ful for all the progress peo­ple before us made because it sim­pli­fies our dai­ly lives and gives us much spare time. We can, how­ev­er, not gen­er­al­ize that with­out ambi­tions we would not have all the facil­i­ties we have nowadays.

If man lived a sim­ple and mod­est life in har­mo­ny with his cre­ator (God) and focus­ing his atten­tion on eter­nal val­ues, he would be able to under­stand which improve­ments are impor­tant and nec­es­sary for a peace­ful and hap­py life. This is what every­one actu­al­ly longs for. But there are lots of inven­tions which make life rather more hec­tic and lead mankind to more greed, com­pe­ti­tion and disharmony.

We have to take great care not to depend on tech­nol­o­gy. We can live with­out it as well. It is not the essence of our lives. Can you imag­ine liv­ing with­out a smart phone or inter­net? Why not? Peo­ple through­out cen­turies and even mil­len­nia did so. They man­aged their work and lives as well. If you can’t imag­ine this, you are prob­a­bly already depen­dent on your phone. It is true that nowa­days we need them for our work at jobs, but let’s ask our­selves whether we always use them responsibly.

We do not have to be always up-to-date. Not every­thing that is new is use­ful or sen­si­ble. And—joy is not depen­dent on abundance!

Ambitions or rather selfless service?

Ambi­tious peo­ple are usu­al­ly very con­cen­trat­ed on their own suc­cess, not think­ing about the needs of oth­ers. At times, they even regard the needs of oth­ers as oppor­tu­ni­ties for giv­ing solu­tions and thus feel­ing impor­tant. Ambi­tion is close­ly con­nect­ed with self­ish­ness which destroys rela­tion­ships. Who wants to have a self­ish friend or col­league? If some­one, how­ev­er, renounces his own inter­ests and instead serves his neigh­bor self­less­ly, we are glad and thank­ful for it. This does not con­tra­dict pur­su­ing one’s own stud­ies or job in a respon­si­ble way, but pri­or­i­ty should be giv­en to oth­ers and not one­self. This is the essence of self­less love which gives real ful­fill­ment in con­trast to a self-seek­ing ambi­tious way of life.

Entrust your future to God!

There­fore I tell you, do not wor­ry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heav­en­ly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valu­able than they? Can any one of you by wor­ry­ing add a sin­gle hour to your life? And why do you wor­ry about clothes? See how the flow­ers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon^[2] in all his splen­dor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomor­row is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of lit­tle faith? So do not wor­ry, say­ing, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the pagans run after all these things, and your heav­en­ly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his king­dom and his right­eous­ness, and all these things will be giv­en to you as well. There­fore do not wor­ry about tomor­row, for tomor­row will wor­ry about itself. Each day has enough trou­ble of its own. (Gospel of Matthew, chap­ter 6, vers­es 25–34)

Jesus says that we should not wor­ry about our future. God takes care of us, as He takes care of every­thing in His cre­ation. He knows what we need. He is a lov­ing God whom we can entrust our future to. Instead of try­ing to secure our lives with our ambi­tious activ­i­ties, we should seek first God’s king­dom and God’s right­eous­ness, and all things we need for life will be giv­en to us as well. This promise of Jesus calls for faith, faith in him and his word.

For many peo­ple secu­ri­ty is very impor­tant, espe­cial­ly earth­ly secu­ri­ty. Let’s see what Jesus says about this in the fol­low­ing parable:

The ground of a cer­tain rich man yield­ed an abun­dant har­vest. He thought to him­self, “What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.” Then he said, “This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build big­ger ones, and there I will store my sur­plus grain. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plen­ty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be mer­ry. ’” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life will be demand­ed from you. Then who will get what you have pre­pared for your­self?” This is how it will be with who­ev­er stores up things for them­selves but is not rich toward God. (Gospel of Luke, chap­ter 12, vers­es 16–21)

Secur­ing our lives in an earth­ly man­ner will cer­tain­ly lead to a great loss, lat­est when we have to die. How will us our high marks at col­lege, our degrees, our high posi­tions in our jobs, mon­ey and hon­or from peo­ple help us then if we are not rich before God? All this does not save us. We can’t take any­thing of these with us when we die.

For all can see that the wise die, that the fool­ish and the sense­less also per­ish, leav­ing their wealth to oth­ers. … Do not be over­awed when oth­ers grow rich, when the splen­dor of their hous­es increas­es; for they will take noth­ing with them when they die, their splen­dor will not descend with them. Though while they live they count them­selves blessed—and peo­ple praise you when you pros­per. (Psalm 49, vers­es 10, 16–18)

So why should we strive ambi­tious­ly for the fame of this world which is only tem­po­rary and pass­es away?—And not only this, it harms us spiritually.

But god­li­ness with con­tent­ment is great gain. For we brought noth­ing into the world, and we can take noth­ing out of it. But if we have food and cloth­ing, we will be con­tent with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temp­ta­tion and a trap and into many fool­ish and harm­ful desires that plunge peo­ple into ruin and destruc­tion. For the love of mon­ey is a root of all kinds of evil. (Paul’s First Let­ter to Tim­o­thy, chap­ter 6, vers­es 6–10)

Better a little, but with a joyful heart and with God

Bet­ter a dry crust with peace and qui­et than a house full of feast­ing, with strife. (Proverbs, chap­ter 17, verse 1)

Bet­ter a lit­tle with the fear of the Lord than great wealth with tur­moil. Bet­ter a small serv­ing of veg­eta­bles with love than a fat­tened calf with hatred. (Proverbs, chap­ter 15, vers­es 16–17)

Con­tent­ment with lit­tle but with an hon­est and pure heart before God gives real joy. The world looks at those who are strong, skill­ful and suc­cess­ful. God looks at the heart and bless­es those who obey Him. His bless­ings are first of all spir­i­tu­al bless­ings, giv­ing us eter­nal life. In con­trast to our mate­ri­al­is­tic soci­ety, Jesus speaks about these spir­i­tu­al blessings:

Blessed are the poor in spir­it, for theirs is the king­dom of heav­en. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be com­fort­ed. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inher­it the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for right­eous­ness, for they shall be sat­is­fied. Blessed are the mer­ci­ful, for they shall receive mer­cy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peace­mak­ers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are per­se­cut­ed for right­eous­ness’ sake, for theirs is the king­dom of heav­en. Blessed are you when oth­ers revile you and per­se­cute you and utter all kinds of evil against you false­ly on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heav­en, for so they per­se­cut­ed the prophets who were before you. (Gospel of Matthew, chap­ter 5, vers­es 3–12)

We should live in the aware­ness of God our cre­ator. Our life­time is short. Let’s not waste it by run­ning after worth­less, sin­ful things or earth­ly suc­cess which can nev­er give us real ful­fill­ment. Let’s ful­fill our duties, be it at school/college or work, faith­ful­ly and respon­si­bly, always keep­ing in mind that this is not the most impor­tant. God knows the best what is good for us. Let’s lis­ten to His voice.

What I mean, broth­ers and sis­ters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are hap­py, as if they were not; those who buy some­thing, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is pass­ing away. (Paul’s First Let­ter to the Corinthi­ans, chap­ter 7, vers­es 29–31)

The apos­tle Paul is a good exam­ple of how we should view suc­cess in this world. He was a very ambi­tious and suc­cess­ful Jew in the time of Jesus; but through Jesus he under­stood that any career in this world is worth­less. See what he says about the time of his life before he met Jesus:

If some­one else thinks they have rea­sons to put con­fi­dence in the flesh, I have more: cir­cum­cised on the eighth day, of the peo­ple of Israel, of the tribe of Ben­jamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Phar­isee^[3]; as for zeal, per­se­cut­ing the church; as for right­eous­ness based on the law, fault­less. But what­ev­er were gains to me I now con­sid­er loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I con­sid­er every­thing a loss because of the sur­pass­ing worth of know­ing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I con­sid­er them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not hav­ing a right­eous­ness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the right­eous­ness that comes from God on the basis of faith. (Paul’s Let­ter to the Philip­pi­ans, chap­ter 3, vers­es 4–9)

Look­ing back to his life before he became a Chris­t­ian, Paul regards all his achieve­ments rub­bish. He would have had the capac­i­ty to become a very impor­tant per­son in the Jew­ish soci­ety, but he renounced his career for the sake of becom­ing a dis­ci­ple of Jesus, know­ing that only in Jesus he can find the pur­pose of life.

Chris­tians use the things of this world with a sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty and thank­ful­ness, but they do not get absorbed or con­trolled by them because they know that they have some­thing much better—an ever­last­ing rela­tion­ship with God. This is what we should take care of with all our strength.