Right or Wrong? Is any career choice a calling?

So many Christians denigrate vocational/career choices like practicing law. But I grew up thinking any career choice is a calling. How can we cultivate that idea?

I knew I wanted to become a lawyer in middle school and always felt it was a calling. That sense has not changed despite attempts to denigrate my profession. Who hasn’t heard the lawyer jokes like, “The reason sharks do not eat lawyers is ‘professional courtesy.’” I can laugh with those jokes since, because of attorneys, we do not have automobiles with exploding gas tanks; employers free to discriminate against qualified workers on the basis of their race, sex or religion; and families able to navigate the breakdown of a marriage in a manner that doesn’t result in an all-out war.

Perhaps the question, however, should not be how we make a specific profession respected as a calling. Even preachers, whom we speak of as being called, sometimes are held in low regard by the public. I once read a book where the author opined that more preachers were called to the ministry by their mothers than by God.

Studies have shown that while folks love to put down lawyers, preachers, politicians and even the teaching profession, they like their own lawyer, preacher, senator and their child’s teacher. Perhaps the emphasis needs to be redirected from the idea of some professions being a calling. Does not that cre-ate a caste system, implying some ways of earning a living are superior to others? While I have had the privilege of being able to earn a living doing something I love, other folks are required to take a job they may not love in order for their families to survive. That person may be nobler than one who is able to do the work they choose, with high pay and status.

Romans 10 tells us the feet of one who preaches the good news are beautiful. Are their feet more beautiful than the feet of the cop on the beat, your child’s teacher, the guys who pick up your garbage, the lady who cleans your bathrooms and the convenience store clerk who is able to greet you with a smile and a cheery hello when you come in for your morning coffee, even though she just finished an all-night shift?

Rather than worrying about whether any particular profession, vocation or job is denigrated, perhaps we should work to recognize that all jobs and all workers are valuable. Regardless of where we work or how we earn our living, how we treat people and respond to their needs may be the best barometer of whether we are living out what we have been called to do. In today’s world, it becomes more and more difficult to be consistently kind, thoughtful and mindful to put the other person’s needs first. Perhaps that is the calling we should all be aiming to fulfill.

Cynthia Holmes, attorney

Former moderator, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

Clayton, Mo.

Right or Wrong? is sponsored by the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to btillman@hsutx.edu.