What do you do?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

What do you do?

Think for a minute about how much those questions have shaped you.  

How many times were you asked about “what you wanted to be when you grew up?”  I remember posing in the back yard for the pictures that would be on my future baseball cards.  I also remember facing the harsh reality that I was not a 5 star athlete… so I switched my goal to sportswriter.  

But now, no one asks me that anymore.  Instead, when I meet people for the first time one of the first questions they ask me is: what do you do?

Basically our whole lives, our careers (or visions of future careers) define us.  

Work defines us.  

Someday it won’t.  

At all the funerals I’ve ever attended, the person’s career is hardly even mentioned.  Sure, it is mentioned in passing.  

“She was a schoolteacher.”

“He was a mechanic.”

Jobs aren’t all that important on a day like that.  

You know what is?  The impact that he or she had on others. 

Stories are told about the time that he went out of his way to help someone in need.  Or when she invited people who were new in town for Thanksgiving dinner.  

Suddenly, the term “assistant to the regional manager” doesn’t mean much anymore.  

Work is a good thing.  It gives us meaning, purpose and identity.  But we can’t let work become an idol that we worship.  

Because there are more important things than your job.  And there is a more important question than “what do you do?”

The real question we should be asking ourselves is this: What do I do for others?

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March to a Different Beat

You probably have heard this phrase from time to time: “He/she marches to the beat of a different drummer.”

 

I love that phrase, because it basically means – you’re weird…. but it is said in a nice way.

 

Because the phrase basically means “you’re weird” I used to hear it a lot.

 

In high school I used to buy shirts at thrifts stores and I would wear a second hand shirt almost everyday.

 

One of them had a picture of some random lady on it.

 

When people would ask, “Oh, is that your grandma?”

 

I would tell them, “You know, I have no idea who this is.”

 

Then I would get a look that said: “You march the beat of a different drummer.”

 

In the book of Genesis scripture says this:

 

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27

 

This is a pretty profound thought.

 

If you believe this, you believe that we are created in the image of God.

 

That we have something divine inside of us.

 

That there is something spiritual to life as well as physical.

 

I think that generally this is ignored.  The main message we get is this: “eat this burger or drive this car or lose twenty pounds… and you will be content.”

 

If you are able to get the tangible stuff right, you will be happy.

 

There is definitely a happiness to be found in physical things, but from my own experience I know it is not enough.

 

There is something spiritual inside of us as well.

 

Anyone who has experienced a wedding or has had a baby will tell you… those moments are deeply significant not just physically… there is something spiritual going on as well.

 

My hope for you is that you will not just go through life looking for answers in physical things.

 

That you will not be content with simple answers to complex questions.

 

I hope that you will march to the beat of a different drum.

 

One that acknowledges not just the physical, but the spiritual as well.

 

Maybe as you do that, you will find that it isn’t so far fetched that you might have the image of God inside of you, after all.

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