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----
-title: Figuring things out
-description:
-  I thought I needed to 'figure things out'. Here's what I did instead.
-pubDate: 2025-06-23
----
-
-'You could always do a Panic Masters.' In my last year of undergraduate studies,
-that was often the sort of advice we liked to console one another with. A lucky
-few people in my year had a clear sense of vocation, but most of us felt
-confused.
-
-Not that we lacked options - graduating with a good degree from a good
-university, we were lucky to have a great deal more options than most people our
-age. We went all sorts of directions. Some followed the money, going into big
-boring management consultancy, big bad tech companies or startups swimming in
-venture capital. Others wanted something more noble, and pursued teaching or the
-third sector. Others still went travelling the world on a shoestring or worked a
-low-skilled job living with their parents, hoping to 'figure things out'.
-
-I thought I needed to figure things out. But I was sure I wasn't going to do
-that by pulling pints, going on holiday, or staying in the university (even
-though I felt passion for academia). I needed something different, something
-that would move my life forward, and ideally, something that would pay the
-bills. Then, maybe after a year or two, I would have a better idea of what
-longer-term future I saw for myself. This, I thought, is the way to start
-figuring things out.
-
-But by January of this year (2025), nothing seemed to have changed. I was still
-working in the same job. I hadn't discovered a passion for software engineering.
-Nor had I discovered a passion for anything else. I was more skilled, I suppose,
-but I didn't have any clearer ideas about how the skills I have should guide me
-into any career into particular. I had looked at other jobs, but not made many
-serious applications. I had applied to a Masters programme in 2024, got an
-offer, turned it down, and applied again in 2025. I was disappointed that I
-apparently hadn't made much progress.
-
-So I vowed to do something about it. I promised myself to study the matter. I
-wanted to know what route to pursue. And, being Christian, I thought, I had to
-figure out how to leverage my theological resources to answer this question. I
-believed that God would have a path set out for me, and so I had to find out
-what it was. A friend told me I needed discernment. That, I thought, was what I
-needed to do - discern the will of God for my career.
-
-I supposed, what God willed me to do in general was quite obvious -- he wants me
-to live in line with the gospel. But that doesn't say much about my career
-choices. So I expected to find something a little more specific. I didn't expect
-to find it in the Bible directly, of course, as there's not much about software
-engineering in the Bible. But maybe the Holy Spirit was trying to nudge me in
-the right direction, and I just needed to figure out how to hear him.
-
-By the way, if you're not a super-spiritual sort and this is starting to sound a
-little kooky, I'm with you -- but I didn't see any other possibility. After all,
-what else could 'discernment' mean in practice, if not 'discerning' some still
-small voice?
-
-So I studied. I got myself copies of some tracts, including Tim Keller's [_Every
-Good Endeavour_][every-good-endeavour] and William Taylor's [_Revolutionary
-Work_][revolutionary-work]. These writers showed me how I had for so long been
-stuck in a view of work which didn't make sense and wasn't leading me anywhere.
-I came away shaken off from how I had been thinking before, and given a new
-perspective from which to start re-thinking my attitudes to work. It's been
-exhilirating, and I recommend both books to anyone for whom work is a major
-concern (but especially to those who, like me, are already infected with
-middle-class thinking, or those at risk of catching it).
-
-The will of God for my life really is as simple as I had feared. What God wants
-for me is the same as what he wants for everyone: to live in line with the
-gospel. God probably doesn't have any special extras for me personally. If the
-Holy Spirit does want to speak to me and wants me to hear it, I can trust him to
-make that happen, and in the meantime, I can carry on listening to God's words
-in the miraculous way he has already provided, not in private whispers but in
-the blinding clear public light of the testimony of the Bible and of the Church
-to Jesus Christ.
-
-I still have unanswered questions about my future career. But my angst is gone.
-
-My angst is gone because I see now I was asking the wrong questions. I wasn't
-really anxious about which career I ought to pursue. I perceived -- rightly --
-that I had been called to walk a narrow path in a life full of junctions. But
-this led me to think that for me, those junctions are mostly about my career
-choices. It followed that the career choices I faced had the power to lead me
-astray from God's way if I chose wrong. Without a map charting the way ahead,
-without a rule by which to determine which was God's way and which the wrong
-way, I feared that my career choices were a dangerous gamble. If I got it wrong,
-I wouldn't be a genuine follower of Christ, I wouldn't genuinely be trying to do
-what's right, and I wouldn't be fulfilling my God-given destiny.
-
-What I didn't see was that I had re-worded the world's anxieties in God-speak.
-It sounded reassuringly pious, but it wasn't right. In fact, it was idolatry.
-
-As I observed at the start of this essay, a large part of my generation of
-university graduates, Christian and non-Christian, share this angst. Most
-wouldn't word it in Christian-sounding God-speak. They might say they're worried
-about fulfilling their potential. But it's the same angst - the fear that if you
-don't choose the right career, you won't be living life to the full, or you
-won't be making the most of your talents and passions, or you won't be genuinely
-doing what's right, but just following the rest of the world into a lukewarm
-career-ladder rat-race. I hadn't 'leveraged my theological resources' at all:
-I'd only leveraged my theological thesaurus.
-
-I think the scales fell from my eyes when commentators brought me back to the
-New Testament's advice on work, which doesn't talk about career choices at all.
-Since Jesus calls all his followers to enter by the narrow gate (Matt 7:13-14),
-likewise, Paul urged the Ephesians to 'live a life worthy of the calling which
-you have received' while arguing that Christ has given different gifts of
-service to each of us, his workers (Eph 4:1, 7-13). But almost all of the people
-Jesus and Paul were addressing had very little control over what work they were
-doing. Indeed, almost all people in the world today have very little control
-over what work they do. The paralysis of choice that I face is also a rare
-privelege. But that means that, when Jesus calls his followers to enter by the
-narrow gate, and Paul urges Christians to use their gifts of service, they can't
-possibly be primarily talking about career choices: most of their audience
-didn't have careers and they didn't have choices. They just had work, and if
-they didn't carry on working, they wouldn't eat (2 Thess 3:10).
-
-The narrow gate is not about choosing the right career in a world of options.
-The narrow gate is choosing to trust God in a world of temptation to worship
-anything else.
-
-Nor does Paul encourage us to switch jobs until we find our God-provided perfect
-match of talents and passions to service. Indeed, some of his most powerful
-encouragement and advice to Christian workers is addressed to people who had
-almost no control whatsoever over what work they did: slaves (eg Eph 6:5-8). In
-two areas where people did have some limited control, namely, circumcision and
-marriage, Paul advises the Corinthians that 'each person should remain in the
-situation they were in when God called them' (1 Cor 17:24).
-
-So God's will for me in my situation is the same as it is for everyone else: to
-come back to our father when he calls. In practice, accepting the good news of
-Jesus Christ means continually confessing my sin and repenting of it. And that
-means being turned inside out: no longer turned in on myself by sin, but turned
-outside onto God my father and onto my neighbour in love.
-
-Nor is there any need for angst, because this is the good news: that we have all
-already failed to fulfil our God-given purpose, which is to love God and one
-another. If we felt angst, it was justified, and indeed the situation was far
-worse than we feared. But despite that, Jesus Christ has made a way for us to be
-acceptable, and if we trust in him, we are permanently secure; free from fear,
-and free to turn back, however faltingly, to the way we were made to be.
-
-For me, this has changed how I think about my career choices.
-
-I've come to see that my career choices are a rare privelege, and something I
-should thank God for. It's also a responsibility to take seriously, as it's an
-opportunity to choose between service and self-service.
-
-I shouldn't choose a career just because it's easy, and I should seek out
-careers with opportunities to serve, and commit to using the opportunities I
-have in whatever work I'm doing to serve. I shouldn't choose a career just
-because it fits my university-educated, middle-class prejudices about what work
-is dignified and what isn't; what kind of job counts as a 'proper job' and what
-is 'dead-end'.
-
-I also shouldn't choose a career just because it's perceived as 'noble'. The
-world needs carers, teachers and preachers. It also needs principled, committed,
-competent white-collar workers making sure that certain boring, technical,
-invisible systems work well. These systems make caring, teaching and preaching
-possible. Through my own experience, I've been humbled by brilliant people in
-front-line jobs doing amazing work, but I've also seen how important those
-tertiary systems are.
-
-I also shouldn't dwell too long on my career choices, paralysed by an irrational
-angst that the value of my life hangs on making the right decision. I should
-remember that Jesus calls everyone alike, although most people don't have
-anywhere near as much power over their own career as I do. And I should remember
-that, as a result, God will use pretty much any line of work for his glory if I
-commit it to him.
-
-So I shouldn't choose what's easy, nor what's perceived as noble, and nor should
-I be paralysed by choice. But what ought I do instead?
-
-Instead, I should commit my work to God right now, starting from this morning. I
-don't have to wait until I find a perfect career, because I will never have a
-perfect career. God can use the line of work I'm already in for his glory, and
-if I don't believe that, I'm not just doubting myself, I'm doubting him. I
-should trust his power. And when I do have career choices, I should commit those
-to him too, not fretting endlessly as if one career is holy and another damned,
-but prioritising service to God and others over myself and trusting God with the
-rest.
-
-Comfort, elitism and moralism are all forms of idolatry. I can toil endlessly
-pursuing any of them and never be satisfied. But instead, I can rest easy in the
-knowledge that my place in God's family is secure, and work hard knowing that
-whenever and wherever and however I make sacrifices for the good of others, God
-is working through me and by me, even though I fall far short of fulfilling my
-potential and my God-given purpose.
-
-I haven't 'figured things out'. As it transpires, there wasn't anything to
-'figure out'. I was saddled with angst at a phantom problem, which my knowledge
-of the gospel should have told me did not exist. I cannot earn my worth on
-earth. But because of Christ, my value is secure. Because of that, I am free to
-work without snobbery, without shame and without angst for the sake of love and
-in the certain hope that in the end, by God's work, not mine, everything will be
-figured out.
-
-[every-good-endeavour]:
-  https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781444702606/every-good-endeavour-paperback
-[revolutionary-work]:
-  https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781910587997/revolutionary-work-paperback