Plantinga's last chapter of Engaging God's World hit close to home. I know that vocation can involve every part of life and not just the college years but especially as a college student, I can't help but think about vocation and God's calling towards my future career. To be honest, I'm still not completely sure what He wants me to do, but I feel like that's part of His plan. If I knew exactly what my life held, where would my dependence on Him go? Probably out the window. He's not a cruel God that's trying to hide things from me, He's a loving God that wants me to trust Him.
As far as careers go, God calls us to be more than just an engineer, teacher, or doctor, (etc) but to be a sister, student, spouse, or friend... "This isn't a job that appears on any government list of occupations, but it is a calling from God, and it is surely a contribution to the kingdom on God". The kingdom or God (heaven) is mentioned quite often in this chapter and I'd like to dwell on that for a little bit. 'Malchut ha-shemayim' also means the kingdom of heaven. The direct translation is: where the kings influence/authority is respected, and the sky or heavens. Now this is not an actual place. Where ever we do God's will is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 6:10 is the second part of the Lord's prayer that says: "your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven". This may seem like just a simple line that we've been told to memorize since we were young but it's actually such an encouragement. My discipleship teacher in high school told us to insert a "when" between 'come' and 'your'. With that it says, "your kingdom come, when your will is done on earth...". The Lord's prayer says that when His will is done on earth, His kingdom will come. Plain and simple. Now, understanding that isn't so difficult... it's the doing that makes things tough. The only encouragement I can give you is that we know the final chapter. We know that chaos does not prevail over shalom and His kingdom. Rejoice in the fact that the final victory is ours.
Gina, I found what you said about inserting "when" in the Lord's Prayer interesting. I had never thought of that. It makes sense though. Kind of along similar lines, I was reading a book and it gave the encouragment to insert my name when the word love came up in 1 Corinthians 13. For Example..."Kendra is patient...Kendra does not envy..."They make it more personal and also makes me realize more of our dependence upon God. Thank you for sharing that!
ReplyDeleteI like how you included what our primary job should be as Christians. You said "As far as careers go, God calls us to be more than just an engineer, teacher, or doctor, (etc) but to be a sister, student, spouse, or friend... "This isn't a job that appears on any government list of occupations." This concept is lost a lot today. We tend to get our priorities mixed up and families often get neglected in that process. We should definitely put family first and jobs or school second. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteI once had an extremely long debate with two adults on where the kingdom of God was. This really helps me to see it a different way, especially when looking at the Lord's prayer. Great point.
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