---
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
