Glorifying God in Whatever We Do by Jeana Medli
In January the Nashville Fellows went on a 5 day “Vocational Counseling” retreat; we walked on water (frozen water, but still), explored abandoned houses, worshipped, communed, and were more vulnerable with each other than we ever had been, thanks to the stomach bug. We were counseled by a great man, Art Lindsley, as he walked through our gifts and dreams with us and even gave us ideas about what he thought we should pursue vocationally.
After a great weekend of wise advice and godly council, I still don’t know what I want to do. In fact, I think for those of us who went in to that weekend to come out of it with epiphany-like clarity about what our career is going to look like, we were sorely disappointed. It’s more like coming out with a car load of things to process through: process through our gifts and talents we are called to be stewards of, process through our dreams and hopes, process through how and where and in what vocation we will bring the Lord the most glory. So no, I still don’t know exactly what I want to do as a job when I get done with this Fellows year. And that’s okay; I’m not worried about what I’m going to do. I want to focus more on how I do whatever I do.
The beauty of the Fellows is that it gives us the room we need to process and grow. This year isn’t about figuring out exactly what it is we need to be doing with our lives. This year is about learning that in WHATEVER we do, we work in order to help bring restoration to God’s kingdom. Do you know how freeing it is to know that the will of the Lord is to love Him with all your heart, mind, body, and soul and to seek His kingdom first? Because that means that if you are seeking His kingdom first and loving Him with all your heart, mind, body, and soul, you can do pretty much anything and it be in alignment with His will for your life. *MIND BLOWN*
We have fellows who are going to go on to glorify God with their music. Side note: do you know how hard it is to sing worship alongside people who are very vocally gifted? The answer is really hard.
We have fellows who are going to go on to glorify God in vocational ministry-whether it be serving generations of youth and/or college students or going overseas and engaging in cross-cultural ministry.
We have fellows who are going to go into counseling or business (or insert random career here) and make a difference in vocational areas that could otherwise be pawned off as “too lost to be saved” or “too corrupt.”
We have fellows who are extraordinarily gifted and passionate about different things and different areas of God’s kingdom. We may not all know exactly what it’s going to look like, but isn’t that the fun part? Life’s an adventure. I don’t want to know exactly what the next 10 years are going to look like; I don’t even want to know exactly what tomorrow is going to look like, that would be incredibly boring. And chances are that it’s not going to look exactly how I picture it anyways. Something I do know, though, is that there are 21 Fellows programs across the country with Fellows who are going to go on and do big things in whatever it is they choose to do because we serve a big God who can and will use puny people in big ways.
