Determine Your Life Work

Where there is no guidance the people fall, but in abundance of counselors there is victory.
—Proverbs 11:14

If you want to live without career regrets, then you need to determine your life work. Today we will look at some characteristics of your life work.

One way you know you have found your life work is that you love doing it. Now, that does not mean you love every aspect of your job. All of us have parts of our job we don’t like. Maybe a doctor doesn’t enjoy dealing with insurance companies. Maybe a teacher doesn’t enjoy faculty meetings. Maybe a salesman doesn’t like filling out monthly sales reports. But those are minor parts of these careers. If you have found your life work, you will enjoy doing your primary responsibility.

If you have discovered the life work that God has designed you to perform, it will also provide you with an adequate income. By the way, there is a difference between life work and a hobby. All of us have hobbies, but we might not be able to earn a living doing them. Our life work is something that provides us with an adequate income. First Timothy 5:8 says, “If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (NASB). God wants you to earn an adequate income to provide for yourself and for your family.

In addition, your life work should be confirmed by other people. When you are performing your life work, people will say things to you like, “You were born to do this.” Or, “You make this look so easy.” Or, “It looks like you are having so much fun doing this.” And when you have found your life work, people will come to you for advice. They will want to be mentored by you. The converse is also true: if you are in a job and nobody is affirming you, then you might want to think twice about your job. I think about the farmer who wanted to be a preacher. One day he said, “I’m gonna give up farming and go into preaching.” He looked into the sky and saw the clouds forming the letters PC. And he thought, “Well, that’s a sign from God. ‘Preach Christ.’” So he gave up farming and went to become a pastor of a church. The only problem was he could not preach his way out of a paper bag. After the man preached several miserable sermons, a deacon came up to him and said, “Have you ever thought that those letters, PC, might have stood for ‘Plant Corn’?” If you have really found your life work, people are going to affirm you in it. Proverbs 11:14 says, “Where there is no guidance the people fall, but in abundance of counselors there is victory.” We ought to listen to what other people say and get good counsel when it comes to identifying our life work.

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Living without Career Regrets” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2009.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.