You Don’t Graduate from Discernment

By Paul Gutacker

“What’s hard about vocation is not that we have to guess what it is.

What’s hard is obeying…”

          As graduation season is upon us, I’m so grateful for Paul Gutacker’s reminder of something that never leaves us, even though we experience key transitions in life. Graduation season harkens vivid memories of my own cosmic transition 25 years ago from high school into the adult abyss. Reflecting on my own high school and college graduations and the relief of finishing those chapters in my life, I agree with every well-thought-out detail Paul has made here and recommend them as prescriptive for navigating life in the south side of heaven. Discernment is one skillset that constantly must be utilized, matured, and regularly applied if I want to live well to the best of my ability for Christ’s glory and honor. The choices and decisions I made 25 years ago have greatly impacted on the way I live today!...let’s sit with this for 5 seconds. While the time in the institutions ended, taking up my cross and following Christ does not cease.

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I still remember what it was like, as a senior in college, to hear the dreaded question: “What’s next?” Plenty of my friends had good answers. I didn’t. I was sure I was going to marry my college sweetheart (she in fact said yes). I knew I wanted to study certain subjects. I knew I needed to earn enough money to live and make my student loan payments. When the question came from well-meaning professors, friends, and future in-laws, I fumbled for an answer, trying not to visibly panic.

Since then, I’ve learned my story isn’t unique: Many soon-to-be-graduates don’t know what’s next. Many feel something must have gone wrong. After four years of study and formation, we think, wasn’t I meant to have my whole life mapped out and immediately use my degree to provide financially and make a meaningful difference in the world? Why am I about to walk across the stage without my vocation figured out?

            That word vocation is at the heart of graduation-season anxiety. Many worry that if they don’t launch straightaway into a meaningful career, they’re missing their vocation. But this has very little to do with a biblical understanding of vocation.

If you want your post-college “bridge years” to be fruitful and not just anxiety-ridden, or if you’re walking alongside a recent graduate, we need to return to what Scripture teaches about vocation. Here are five things graduates can hold onto in this season:

 

1. Your vocation is not unique to you.

Vocation comes from the Greek vocare, “to be called.” The apostle Paul really liked this word, addressing believers in Rome and in Corinth as “called ones,” or “invited ones” (Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2). In Paul’s letters, vocation is tied to being called by God: We’ve been called to participate in God’s kingdom plan of redemption through Christ. And crucially, in all of this, Paul is addressing churches, not individuals. The most important aspects of your vocation, your calling, are common to all Christians. Put another way, while God’s call is personal, it is never individual. It is a call to be part of a people.

2. Your vocation is not primarily (or even secondly) about your career.

We live, as philosopher Josef Pieper put it, in a world of “total work.” Writing in Europe as it sought to rebuild after World War II, Pieper argued that the modern world makes work our identity: Work spreads “to cover and include the whole of human activity and even of human life.” In other words, we are what we achieve and produce. If Pieper’s diagnosis is right, no wonder that when we speak about vocation, we’re usually talking about our career.

To be sure, work is part of being human. Working hard, earning a wage, and being productive are all good things. The problem is that vocation and occupation aren’t interchangeable. Instead, the Bible makes clear that our vocation, God’s call on our lives, is fundamental. Christ calls us, just as he called his disciples, saying, “Come, follow me” (Matt. 4:19).

Following Christ has implications for every aspect of life, and responding to God’s call should make a difference in why and how (and perhaps even in what field) one works. But a career is likely not even secondary to a person’s vocation. Likely, paid work is less central to following God’s call than things like loving your family, caring for your neighbor, serving others, and perhaps even pursuing hobbies or unpaid work. These may be more essential to your vocation.

 

3. Your vocation is not a secret plan for your life that God will only reveal if you crack the code.

When I listen to students talk about vocation, it sometimes sounds like they’re trying to solve a riddle or decode a secret message. It’s as if God designed them for one specific career path but refuses to give them the map. We’ve already challenged this notion by remembering that vocation is primarily corporate. But it’s also not a riddle or a secret. It’s something clearly laid out for you.

Listen to some things Paul makes quite clear: Your calling doesn’t have anything to do with your abilities (1 Cor. 1:18–31); your calling is something bestowed on you by God (Rom. 11); your calling is eschatologically oriented toward your final hope (Eph. 13–14); your calling is about holiness (2 Tim. 1:9); and God is making you worthy of your calling (2 Thess. 1:11). Notice how many of these come from the opening lines of Paul’s epistles. There’s nothing hidden here. Paul wants you to get it, so he says it right up front.

             What’s hard about vocation is not that we have to guess what it is. What’s hard is obeying. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Our vocation is to follow Christ to the Cross.

 

4. Your vocation is not something you figure out between the ages of 20 and 23 and then coast on for the rest of your life.

If the heart of your vocation is clear—it’s the way of the Cross—you still need to discern what to do with your days. This discernment isn’t something you’ll finish this year, or next. You won’t figure out your vocation at age 25 and be done with it.

            One reason is practical: Life won’t go the way you expect. If you’re graduating in 2026, you’ll change jobs on average every 3.2 years. Your generation moves around more, buys a first home later, and marries both less and older. Your life will be more fluid and less permanent than that of your predecessors. That might excite you or make you anxious or both. Regardless, it means you’ll never be done asking, How should I follow Christ?

You don’t graduate from vocational discernment, because the Christian life requires ongoing repentance. We need moments in our days and in the church year (like the season of Lent) when we pause to remember our mortality, to take a long, hard look at our sin and to ask, once again, “How can I turn back to you, Lord? From what do I need to turn away?”

Because life holds many twists and turns, and because we’re never done repenting, discernment isn’t something from which we move on.

 

5. Your vocation is as much about the present as it is about the future.

Finally, it’s tempting to think of vocational discernment as figuring out something that happens in the future, about making plans or large life choices. There’s nothing wrong with making a plan, but planning can easily distract us from the present. Worse still, our planning can be spiritually dangerous when it makes us feel like we’re in control of lives. To those of us addicted to planning, Christ asks: “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matt. 6:27).

Discernment is less about the future and more about what God is doing right now. As theologian Gordon Smith puts it, “To discern well we must pay attention: we need to observe and listen (3LO2237), noting what is happening around us and within us and attending to what others are saying.” In other words, discernment requires noticing what God is doing and seeking to participate in his work. We can only hear Christ’s call when he speaks to us—here and now. One way to avoid answering Christ is to obsess over the future, to fixate on our plans, dreams, and anxieties.

If you’re coming up on graduation, you’ve likely been in a season of life that’s all about discerning your vocation. Whether or not you have plans lined up or are still wondering what to do, it’s a weighty time.

Thankfully, your vocation doesn’t hinge on what comes right after graduation. The most important aspects of your calling (vocaré) have already been given to you. Your vocation is not defined by what you’ll go on to achieve. Instead, you’ve been invited to belong to God’s people, to hear and respond to Christ’s call to follow him to the Cross. And the work of discerning how to follow this call isn’t something you’ll wrap up by May. And for someone who keeps getting the “What’s next?” question, this is very good news.

 

Source: https://www.christianitytoday.com/2026/04/you-dont-graduate-from-discernment/

Has America Gone Mad?

by Chuck Colson

Has Our Nation Gone Mad? What about Christians? If you were to agree, what are you doing about it? It's a scary proposition but I will never forget Edmund Burke's medicinally stinging quote: "The only thing necessary for for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." What Burke said has awakened me from the slumber of fear.

I'm constantly inspired by the intellect and principles of Chuck Colson.  Though he went to heaven in 2012, I believe his commentaries still resonate with great relevance and helpfulness in today's chaotic zeitgeist.

"This country has lost its mind. Just ask Soren Kierkegaard. OK, that’s a bit cryptic, but read today’s commentary, and I’m sure you’ll agree.

Just when you thought it was safe to turn on your TV, there it was again—another mind-numbing story about politics.

You might have thought we’d catch a breath after President Obama’s historic election. But no, we’ve been treated to daily doses of political news ever since—the “historic” election of Republican Senator Scott Brown, Tea Party events, and weekly political scandals. Now, we’re looking ahead to November and the next “most historic election ever”—the one that will finally save America.

Are we all losing our minds, spending half our lives watching politics on the tube? I’m reminded of the words of Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th-century Danish philosopher. Almost 100 years before the invention of television, Kierkegaard predicted what would happen if such a thing were invented. “Suppose,” Kierkegaard wrote, “someone invented...a convenient little talking tube which could be heard over the whole land. I wonder if the police would not forbid it, fearing that the whole country would become mentally deranged.”

He was right: We are becoming deranged. We are succumbing to what French philosopher Jacques Ellul prophesied in the 1960s—the politicization of all aspects of life. Ellul foresaw the Information Age and the media’s need for a steady flow of information to feed the populace. Media therefore would gravitate to covering centers of power. Politicians would be willing accomplices, because they’d gain fame and clout.

We’ve succumbed to what Ellul predicted—the idea that every problem has a political solution. This, he warned, leads to increasing dependence on the state and decreasing citizen control of government.

The result: The structure of government becomes so unwieldy that it can hardly function. For example, we’ve spent billions fighting terrorism—but we couldn’t stop “the underwear bomber” from boarding a U.S.-bound plane, even though his name was on a terrorist watch list.

Ellul also foresaw that when government becomes all-intrusive, the intermediate structures that keep societies vibrant—families, churches, and voluntary associations—collapse and tyranny follows.

What’s the answer? First, we better recognize that politics is not the be-all and end-all. Politics is merely the expression of culture. Clean up culture—that’s our job—and politics will follow.

This happened when God’s people were awakened in England in the 18th and 19th centuries. England then was in worse straits than we are today, with slavery, child labor, and rampant political corruption. But along came William Wilberforce, the Oxford movement, and the Salvation Army. What followed was a great, century-long revival of Christian faith. England was not only saved in the Wesley revivals, it was stronger than ever.

So we as 21st-century Christians must do the same thing. And there is no time to lose. If, as I believe, the political illusion has America by the throat, there are only two likely outcomes—revolution, which is what the Tea Party people suggest (albeit peacefully), or tyranny.

God has acted again and again through His people to change history’s course. But for that to happen, the Church had better sober up, summon its spiritual resources, expose the political illusion, and begin to defend and live the Christian faith in our culture."

Source: http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/14201

7 Signs You're Way Too Busy

And How to Break the Cycle.

By Alli Worthington

"Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." (Eph 5:15-16)

Have you noticed “busy” has become the new “fine"? When someone asks you how you are, chances are, your default answer is, “Good, busy, but good.”

We’ve all heard the research that shows us the affects of stress and busyness in our lives, but what if our harried pace is keeping us from the life we are created to live?

We live in a culture that tells us we have to do more, be more and achieve more. We all want to live full lives, full of meaning and purpose, but it is our busyness that often robs us of living out our potential.

Contrary to what many of us have been told, we can’t handle it all, nor should we. So how do we know when we’re reaching our limit? We aren’t like our phones with flashing numbers to tell us we’ve reached our capacity. But there are signs our body gives us if we’re paying attention, signs that may look different for each of us. For some, the warning signs may be emotional. For others, they might be physical, relational, or spiritual. But rest assured, if you are over capacity, you will soon find out—the hard way.

An Inability to Control Your Emotions

Do you constantly feel anxious, irritable, depressed and overwhelmed? All of these are signs that something isn’t right. Out-of-control emotions often reflect the out-of-control demands we put on ourselves.

Lack of Self-Care

If we already have a full plate of obligations and crazy commitments, the last thing most of us want to do is spend time planning healthy meals, working out or taking care of our physical health or appearance. That just sounds like more work. Taking care of yourself may seem selfish, but self-care is one of the most other-centered choices you can make in your life.

Illness

There was a season in my life when I simply could not get well. I lived with a cold, a sinus infection, a stomach bug, or the flu almost all the time. I remember telling a doctor once, “You have to help me. I am sick of being sick!”

He said, “Alli, is it possible you’re stressed?”

Constant illness can be a sign of many things, and of course, you should see your doctor if you’re struggling in this area. But illness can also be your body’s warning to you that you need to make changes in your life.

(See what I did putting this section after self care? A lack of self-care often leads to ongoing illness. I told you self-care wasn’t selfish!)

Chronic Lateness

I know I’m about to step on some toes here (mine most of all!), but I believe chronic lateness is caused by the tendency to say yes to too many activities and too many people. It’s a crazy cycle of trying to be all things to all people and to do more than is humanly possible. In the end, we can’t get anywhere on time or accomplish everything we say we will, and we end up disappointing everyone because the weight of it all is too much.

It’s crucial to recognize that we all have limits. When you are over your limits, the right thing to do is to let someone who has capacity step in and run with it. You aren’t letting anyone down. You are stewarding your time and energy well.

Self-Medicating and Excess

When the demands of life become too much, self-medicating is a very common response. To be honest, overeating sweets is a problem for me. It’s something I have struggled with throughout my life. I am absolutely a work in progress in many areas. This is one of them.

Self-medicating might also take the form of obsessive exercise, too many hours on social media, or watching a lot of television instead of getting much-needed sleep. Sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking self-medicating is actually self-care — “I deserve that chocolate bar!” But if we find that our habits are directly related to stressful situations in our lives, and that they are not renewing or restoring us, then we need to recognize those choices as a warning sign of busyness. We need to ask ourselves if escaping reality just seems like an easier choice than reducing our to-do list.

Whether it is overindulging or a serious addiction, self-medicating is a serious warning sign. Left ignored, it can bring disaster to our lives.

Neglecting Important Relationships

Do you feel as if you are habitually letting down the people closest to you: your [spouse], children, close friends, family, and colleagues? It’s easy to feel guilty about these things. And once we start feeling just a twinge of guilt, it’s all over. The onslaught of pressure and guilt we heap on ourselves outweighs any positive feedback anyone else gives us.

Neglecting God

A huge sign that I am over capacity is when I start skipping church because I have too much to do, and I don’t pray because I need to dive straight into work.

Staying connected to God is what keeps me operating within my capacity and what helps me understand that God made me with limitations on purpose. Having a limited capacity is not a flaw in my character. It is by glorious design and for an incredible purpose: to realize my need for Him.

Life doesn’t have to be lived on the edge of burnout. It’s crucial to start breaking busy before the busy starts breaking you. And breaking busy doesn’t mean you have to do less (unless that is, in fact, what you need to do), it means you give your time and energy to the things that you are created to do, not the things you feel you should do out of obligation or expectation.

Source: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/7-signs-youre-way-too-busy?utm_source=This%20Week%3A%207%20Signs%20You%27re%20Way%20Too%20Busy&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=1%20Title&utm_campaign=RELEVANT%20Newsletter