http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14978862/what-desiring-god-wants-to-be-known-for
Audio Transcript
Well 2021 is nearly done, and 2022 is nearly here. Amazing. As we change out the calendar, Pastor John shared some thoughts recently that I want to share with you here. He was speaking about our aims at Desiring God. What do we aspire to do? What do we want to be? What do we want to be known for? What kind of reputation do we want? We think about these things because the Bible calls us to consider these things. For our answer, I want you to hear from Pastor John directly. Here’s what he said.
At Desiring God, we love truth. That’s how we love people, because Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). He said, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). He said, “The Father is seeking such people to worship him [in spirit and in truth]” (John 4:23). The apostle Paul said to put on “the belt of truth” when you go out to battle the devil (Ephesians 6:14). Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). He prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).
And there’s the key for us at Desiring God: “Your word is truth.” If you love the truth, you love the word. If you measure everything by the truth, you measure everything by the word of God, the Bible.
“Desiring God aims to be a truth-driven, Bible-saturated, Christ-exalting, obedience-advancing, joy-deepening ministry.”
We have a ten-year vision at Desiring God, and we break it down into ten facets of a fruitful future. The very first one goes like this: we intend, we dream, we hope, we pray, we aim that Desiring God will be among the first ministries that people think of all over the world when they are asked the question, Where can I go for resources that never apologize for any teaching in the Bible? That’s what we want to be.
And the teaching that is right at the heart of Desiring God is the glorious teaching, the glorious reality, that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him — when we are most happy, most joyful, most treasuring of Jesus right through all the sorrows and pains of obedience.
So we aim to be a truth-driven, Bible-saturated, Christ-exalting, obedience-advancing, joy-deepening ministry. If you love this vision, would you put us to the test? Would you see whether we are found faithful to be that kind of truth-driven ministry? And if you find us faithful, would you consider being a monthly ministry partner with us? We would be so encouraged with that level of support, so thank you for considering it.
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Face Your Fear of Man: How Christ Delivers from Human Approval
“Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?”
Cassius, one of the villains in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, is ambitious. He sees Julius Caesar ascending to power, and Cassius hates it. Yet he knows, like Scar in The Lion King, that if he wants to take down Caesar, he must gain powerful allies. Brutus, a noble war hero, is such a man.
Cassius slithers up to Brutus while Brutus is in some untold conflict with himself (perhaps fighting a similar concern with Caesar’s rise). Listen again to his question,
“Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?” (1.2.51)
Cassius asks Brutus if he can see himself. In other words, Cassius asks if he can properly know himself — see Brutus as Brutus is — without the help of another.
“No, Cassius,” Brutus responds, “for the eye sees not itself, but by reflection, by some other things.” (1.2.52–53)
As the eye cannot see its own face, Brutus responds, neither can he know himself alone. He must see his reflection by some mirror. Cassius, to recruit this needed Knight to checkmate the potential King, offers to be that mirror for Brutus. Flatteringly, he reflects a majestic Brutus. A regal Brutus. A Brutus that is as great, if not greater, than Caesar — a Brutus the people would wish was in charge.
Who Shows You Your Face?
Shakespeare gives us the perceptive question that I turn now to you.
“Tell me, good reader, can you see your face?”
Who do you look at to see yourself? Whose opinion of you forms your identity? If you have been like me, perhaps you rely on many mirrors. Does this group think I am fun to be around? Does my wife find me desirable? Does this pastor or small group respect me? Do these people think I am smart, or those people, funny? Does this group like my writing; does he think I talk too much?
“Who do you look at to see yourself? Whose opinion of you forms your identity?”
I see myself, if I am not careful, reflected in a carnival of mirrors. In this one, I’m short and chubby. In that one, I am tall and skinny. In this one, I have an inflated head. In that one, massive feet. In the one over there, I am “too Christian.” In this one here, I am just right — at least for the moment. We too often live from mirror to mirror, always looking into others’ faces to see our own. We live and move and have our being looking for certain people to approve of us.
Isn’t it a wonder, then, that there was one who walked among us who cared not for human mirrors, one of whom even his enemies had to admit, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you [do not look at the faces of men]” (Matthew 22:16)?
Nothing but the Truth
The Pharisees, in the spirit of Cassius, said this to manipulate Jesus. They meant to entangle him. They wanted him out of the way, so they held a meeting to discuss how to trap him in his words. This introduction, which flattered Jesus for not regarding faces, was bait.
For their plan to work, they needed him to continue to do what he had been doing: speak truthfully regardless of the consequences. He couldn’t back down now, or the web wouldn’t stick. They need him to answer; they think they’ve asked a question Jesus cannot answer without his harm. So they say in effect,
Teacher, we know you’re true and speak God’s way truthfully and that you don’t fear any man. We know you will tell us exactly how it is — that you will speak plainly the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth — come what may.
They speak truly of Jesus falsely, yet they speak truthfully about him. Matthew Henry comments,
In his evangelical judgment, he did not know faces; that Lion of the tribe of Judah, turned not away for any (Proverbs 30:30), turned not a step from the truth, nor from his work, for fear of the most formidable. He reproved with equity (Isaiah 11:4), and never with partiality.
He did not shrink back from declaring the whole counsel of God. He spoke the truth as it was. No faces swayed him; no appearances prejudiced him against the truth. He is the Truth.
Whether Friend or Foe
We come to more fully appreciate our Master’s impartiality when we consider the various groups to whom he delivered the undressed truth.
He spoke plainly to his enemies and to sinners. He saw the faces of the chief priests and Pharisees, the faces of tax collectors and prostitutes, the faces of large crowds, and taught directly the way of faith and the way of repentance. He “went there” with the woman at the well concerning her sordid relationship history. With the powerful scribes and Pharisees, he pronounced “Woe to you!”
What’s equally admirable (and at times more difficult) is that he lived without undue regard even toward the faces of his own family and friends, altering his message for none. At twelve years old, he caused his parents great distress by staying back in the temple three days, only to ask when found, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). He notes the disciples’ little faith, and then memorably confronts Peter, that great rock of an apostle, saying, “Get behind me, Satan!” (Mark 8:33).
He did not receive his identity from men and thus he could perfectly love men with the truth. Uninhibited by the fear of man or the craving for endorsement, he did not campaign for human votes, but baffled crowds as one who spoke with authority, as one without need of their applause and support.
The King’s Face
So tell me, Christian, can you see your face?
Instead of looking around to see your reflection in faces around you, look to the beautiful face of God in the face of his only Son, Jesus Christ. His face gives freedom from the fear of man. If he approves, let all the world condemn.
“Jesus’s face gives freedom from the fear of man. If he approves, let all the world condemn.”
To illustrate how looking to this exalted face can extinguish the slavish fear of any other face on earth, consider in closing a story Michael Reeves recently gave at Ligonier about Hugh Latimer (1487–1555). Latimer, an English bishop, once preached before the frightful King Henry VIII, an easily provoked man with many wives and mistresses.
Spurgeon described the scene this way.
It was the custom of the Court preacher to present the king with something on his birthday, and Latimer presented Henry VIII. with a pocket-handkerchief with this text in the corner, “Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge” [Hebrews 13:4]; a very suitable text for bluff Harry. And then he preached a sermon before his most gracious majesty against sins of lust, and he delivered himself with tremendous force, not forgetting or abridging the personal application.
The king, as you would expect, was not pleased. He told Latimer that he was to preach again the next Sunday and apologize to him publicly. Latimer thanked the king and left.
The following Sunday arrived, Latimer climbed the pulpit, and said these unforgettable words:
“Hugh Latimer [referring to himself in the third person], thou art this day to preach before the high and mighty prince Henry, King of Great Britain and France. If thou sayest one single word that displeases his Majesty he will take thy head off; therefore, mind what thou art at.”
But then said he, “Hugh Latimer, thou art this day to preach before the Lord God Almighty, who is able to cast both body and soul into hell, and so tell the king the truth outright.” (Godly Fear and Its Goodly Consequences, 237)
The most foreboding face among men looked menacingly upon Latimer and bid him mind his tongue. But Latimer gazed above the man, in whose nostrils was breath, and considered the face of Christ, the Lord of heaven and earth. He would not play small. He would not tamper with his Master’s message. He would not mind a merely human face, even the face of his earthly king, if that face bid him look away from the face of the King of heaven.
And while our moments may be (far) less dramatic and less threatening, we are still in need of such lion-hearted, Christ-exalting courage. Who cares what the world thinks? Faces do not show us ourselves; but Christ does. Christ calls us to look to his face, to hear his word, and to listen to his people to understand who we are in him. And as we hear what he speaks over us, mere human faces lose their hold on us. We speak truthfully and love freely because we, like Christ, are not receiving glory from men.
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Narnia Meets Middle-Earth: The Friendship of Lewis and Tolkien
ABSTRACT: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were united through a common university (Oxford), a common writers’ group (the Inklings), and many common interests (mythology, philology, and theology). From the late 1920s on, their many similarities forged a friendship that would deeply influence both men and, through their writings, millions more. Without Lewis, Tolkien would never have finished Lord of the Rings; without Tolkien, Lewis may never have become a Christian and written Chronicles of Narnia. Their honest, faithful, realistic affection for each other tells the story of one of the world’s great literary friendships.
For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Devin Brown, professor of English at Asbury University, to tell the story of the friendship between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.
On December 3, 1929, C.S. Lewis began a letter to Arthur Greeves, his boyhood friend from Belfast. Having just turned 31 and in his fourth year as an Oxford don, Lewis described how he had gotten “into a whirl” as he always did near the end of the term.
“I was up till 2:30 on Monday,” Lewis wrote, “talking to the Anglo Saxon professor Tolkien who came with me to College from a society and sat discoursing of the gods and giants and Asgard for three hours, then departing in the wind and rain. . . . The fire was bright and the talk good.”1
This was Lewis pre-conversion and Tolkien before The Hobbit, two men virtually unknown outside their small circle at Oxford. Years later in The Four Loves, Lewis would note how great friendships can often be traced to the moment two people discover they have a common interest few others share — when each thinks, “You too? I thought I was the only one.”2 For Lewis and Tolkien, it was a shared interest in old stories.
Beginning of a Friendship
The two had met for the first time three and a half years earlier at an English faculty meeting. Not long afterward, Tolkien invited Lewis to join the Kolbitar, a group that met to read Icelandic sagas together. But Lewis’s suggestion that Tolkien come back to his rooms at Magdalen on that blustery December night marked a pivotal step in their friendship.
During their late-night discussion, Tolkien came to see that Lewis was one of those rare people who just might like the strange tales he had been working on since coming home from the war, stories he previously considered just a private hobby. And so, summoning up his courage, he lent Lewis a long, unfinished piece called “The Gest of Beren and Luthien.”
Several days later, Tolkien received a note with his friend’s reaction. “It is ages since I have had an evening of such delight,” Lewis reported.3 Besides its mythic value, Lewis praised the sense of reality he found in the work, a quality that would be typical of Tolkien’s writing.
At the end of Lewis’s note, he promised that detailed criticisms would follow, and they did — fourteen pages where Lewis praised a number of specific elements and pointed out what he saw as problems with others. Tolkien took heed of Lewis’s criticisms, but in a unique way. While accepting few specific suggestions, Tolkien rewrote almost every passage Lewis had problems with. Lewis would later say about Tolkien, “He has only two reactions to criticism: either he begins the whole work over again from the beginning or else takes no notice at all.”4
And so began one of the world’s great literary friendships.
‘Has Nobody Got Anything to Read Us?’
While millions worldwide have come to love and value Tolkien’s stories of Middle-earth, Lewis was the first. His response, exuberant praise as well as hammer-and-tongs criticism, would also be the pattern for their writing group, the Inklings. And this blend of encouragement and critique provided the perfect soil in which some of the most beloved works of the twentieth century would sprout.
The informal circle of friends would gather in Lewis’s rooms on Thursday nights. Lewis’s brother, Warnie, provides this description of what would happen next:
When half a dozen or so had arrived, tea would be produced, and then when pipes were alight Jack would say, “Well, has nobody got anything to read us?” Out would come a manuscript, and we would settle down to sit in judgement upon it — real, unbiased judgement, too, since we were no mutual admiration society: praise for good work was unstinted, but censure for bad work — or even not-so-good work — was often brutally frank.5
“While millions worldwide have come to love and value Tolkien’s stories of Middle-earth, Lewis was the first.”
Tolkien read sections of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Lewis read from The Problem of Pain, which he dedicated to the Inklings, as well as from The Screwtape Letters, which he dedicated to Tolkien. Other Lewis works debuted at Inklings meetings included Perelandra, That Hideous Strength, and The Great Divorce. Warnie read from The Splendid Century, his work about life under Louis XIV. Charles Williams read drafts of All Hallows’ Eve.
The Inklings were not without flaws. Rather than trying to help improve The Lord of the Rings, several simply disparaged it. Hugo Dyson was so negative that Tolkien finally chose not to read if he were present, saving his chapters for Lewis alone. A letter to Tolkien’s son Christopher in 1944 provides a window into what those private meetings were like, as Tolkien reports, “Read the last 2 chapters (“Shelob’s Lair” and “The Choices of Master Samwise”) to C.S.L. on Monday morning. He approved with unusual fervor, and was actually affected to tears by the last chapter.”6
Unpayable Debt
Years later, Tolkien would describe the “unpayable debt” he owed Lewis, explaining, “Only from him did I ever get the idea that my ‘stuff’ could be more than a private hobby. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more I should never have brought The Lord of the Rings to a conclusion.”7
Without Lewis, there would be no Lord of the Rings. We might also say that without Tolkien there would be no Chronicles of Narnia, not because of Tolkien’s literary interest in them but for a different reason. Today we know Lewis as one of the greatest Christian writers of the twentieth century, but while it was clear from the start that Lewis would be a writer, it was not clear at all that he would become a Christian. Before his midlife conversion, he would need Tolkien to provide a missing piece.
Addison’s Walk
In another letter to Arthur, this one dated September 22, 1931, Lewis tells about an evening conversation that would change his life. He explains that he had a weekend guest, Dyson, from Reading University. Tolkien joined them for supper, and afterward the three went for a walk.
“We began (in Addison’s walk just after dinner) on metaphor and myth,” Lewis writes. He then describes how they were interrupted by a rush of wind so unexpected they all held their breath. “We continued (in my room) on Christianity,” Lewis adds, “a good long satisfying talk in which I learned a lot.”8
What Lewis learned was critical. He had previously ended his disbelief and became a theist. As he states in Surprised by Joy, “In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”9 After this first step — with help from Christian friends and Christian authors like G.K. Chesterton, George Herbert, and George MacDonald — Lewis began the step that would lead to belief in Christ.
Lewis explained to Arthur that what had been holding him back was his inability to comprehend in what sense Christ’s life and death provided salvation to the world, except insofar as his example might help. What Dyson and Tolkien showed him was that understanding exactly how Christ’s death puts us right with God was not most important but believing that it did. They urged him to allow the story of Christ’s death and resurrection to work on him, as the other myths he loved did — with one tremendous difference: this one really happened.
Nine days after that special night on Addison’s Walk — during a ride to the zoo in the sidecar of Warnie’s motorbike — Lewis came to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Years later he stated, “Dyson and Tolkien were immediate human causes of my own conversion.”10
‘It Really Won’t Do’
Given Lewis’s encouragement of Tolkien and Tolkien’s role in Lewis’s acceptance of Christianity, we can say, in one sense, that without the other’s contribution, we would not have Narnia or Middle-earth. But only in one sense. For while Lewis appreciated Tolkien’s stories about Middle-earth, Tolkien did not like Lewis’s books about Narnia.
“We can say, in one sense, that without the other’s contribution, we would not have Narnia or Middle-earth.”
Perhaps too much is made of Tolkien’s dislike for Narnia, particularly since Tolkien seems never to have made that much of it. While there is a good deal of speculation on the reasons for Tolkien’s disapproval, this speculation is based on secondhand reports. In Green and Hooper’s biography, we have several vague, disapproving, private comments Tolkien made about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, such as, “It really won’t do, you know!”11
George Sayer, who knew both men personally, includes two paragraphs in his Lewis biography summarizing Tolkien’s objections but offering little in terms of direct quotes. In addition to their jumble of unrelated mythological elements, Sayer claims that Tolkien thought the Narnia stories showed signs of being “carelessly and superficially written.”12
In a letter to David Kolb, we have a brief instance where Tolkien directly expresses his opinion of Narnia as he states, “It is sad that ‘Narnia’ and all that part of C.S.L.’s work should remain outside the range of my sympathy.”13 Here we find the suggestion that Tolkien’s narrow tastes may have been part of the problem. We do know that when the Tolkiens’ granddaughter Joanna was staying with them and went looking for something to read, her grandfather directed her to the Narnia books on his bookshelf.
‘I Miss You Very Much’
As the two men grew older, they were less close — another aspect scholars sometimes make too much of. Evidence that they remained friends, though in a less intense and intimate way, is found in a number of places.
In the autumn of 1949, twelve years after first starting it, Tolkien finished typing a final copy of The Lord of the Rings. Lewis, now 50, was the first person to whom he lent the completed typescript. “I have drained the rich cup and satisfied a long thirst,” Lewis wrote on October 27, 1949, declaring it to be “almost unequalled in the whole range of narrative art known to me.” Recalling the many obstacles Tolkien had overcome, Lewis declared, “All the long years you have spent on it are justified.” Lewis closed the world’s first review of Tolkien’s masterpiece with the words “I miss you very much.”14
It took more years for Tolkien to secure a publisher. In November 1952, when he learned Allen & Unwin was willing to publish the long-awaited sequel to The Hobbit, Tolkien immediately wrote Lewis with the good news. Lewis wrote back with warm congratulations, noting the “sheer pleasure of looking forward to having the book to read and re-read.”15
In 1954, after Lewis had been passed over more than once for a chair at Oxford, Tolkien played a key role in Lewis being offered and then accepting Cambridge’s newly created Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Studies. And in 1961, less than three years before his death, Lewis was invited to nominate someone for the Nobel Prize in Literature and put forth Tolkien’s name.
In November of the following year, Tolkien wrote to Lewis inviting him to a dinner celebrating the publication of English and Medieval Studies Presented to J.R.R. Tolkien on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday — a collection to which Lewis had contributed an essay. Citing his deteriorating health, Lewis thanked him but graciously declined.
A few days before Christmas, Tolkien wrote again. We do not know the topic but do know that on Christmas Eve, 1962, Lewis wrote back thanking him for his “most kind letter.” Lewis closed by saying, “Is it still possible amid the ghastly racket of ‘Xmas’ to exchange greetings for the Feast of the Nativity? If so, mine, very warm, to both of you.”16 By the next Christmas, Lewis was gone.
Lewis died at home on November 22, 1963, a week shy of his 65th birthday. Shortly afterward, Tolkien wrote his son Michael about the loss. Although they had become less close, Tolkien stated, “We owed each a great debt to the other, and that tie with the deep affection that it begot, remains.”17 Here Tolkien, always careful with words, does not say that his tie and deep affection with Lewis remained all the way up until Lewis’s death, but that it remains. Presumably, it still does.
‘Much Good’
At the close of his biography, Alister McGrath seeks to explain Lewis’s enduring appeal, especially in America. McGrath proposes that by “engaging the mind, the feelings, and the imagination” of his readers, Lewis is able to extend and enrich their faith. Reading Lewis not only gives added power and depth to their commitment but also opens up a deeper vision of what Christianity is.18
I know this was true for me. Lewis was able to help extend and enrich my faith at a time when help was desperately needed. For those like me, Lewis’s books become lifelong companions, reminding us again and again of who we are and why we are here, seeing us through difficult times, and helping to shape and add meaning to our experience.
Tolkien wrote in his diary, “Friendship with Lewis compensates for much, and besides giving constant pleasure and comfort has done me much good.”19 Today, on the anniversary of Lewis’s birth, people all over the world, from all walks of life and stages in faith, would agree. Yes, it does. And yes, it has.
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How Should I Choose a College Major?
Audio Transcript
Welcome back to the podcast. You send us the questions on your mind, and longtime author and pastor John Piper opens his Bible and finds answers for those questions. And speaking of the big questions in life, there’s one major question facing every college student, and that’s the question of major. What direction to go in life, what field to pursue, what college, what vocation — all of those things.
Many high school and college students seek to make that decision simply based on money. But for Christians, the money decision is a secondary one, leading to today’s question from a young woman named Kerri. “Pastor John and Tony, thank you for the Ask Pastor John podcast. I have listened to every episode. And most of those episodes while walking my dog, to the point that my dog gets super excited every time she hears the intro jingle! My question for you, Dr. Piper, is this. When deciding on a college major, how much should future income factor into the decision? What other general guidelines and factors should be considered by a young Christian wanting to not waste his or her life in the vocation he or she chooses?”
I have a very personal stake in this kind of question because I do serve as the chancellor and as a professor at Bethlehem College & Seminary here in Minneapolis. We have a college of a very particular kind, and I feel that sense of responsibility to help parents and help young people decide if this school is possibly the kind that they would benefit from by attending.
What I’m going to say doesn’t relate only to our school but to education and vocation in general, in the hope of helping young people or even older people, as we’ll see — I think people are making midlife changes about education and vocation all the time — decide what kind of education and vocation to pursue. So, let me start with five observations that put this question in a certain context.
Five Observations About Education
First, most of the world does not have access to the kind of education assumed in the question about choosing a major. Most of the world moves from family to a rudimentary, basic education of reading and writing and math (if that), and then into some kind of apprenticeship, or simply into the family occupation. Higher education, as we know it in America, is simply not an option most places in the world.
Second, even in developed countries like America where higher education exists, only about 62 percent of high school graduates go to college. That’s a lot of millions who don’t. There are all kinds of paths into useful vocational life through trade schools, technical schools, or on-the-job learning. So, I don’t assume in answering this question that everyone should go to college.
Third, for those who do go to college, the choices are very many. There are huge universities with hundreds of majors. At the University of Minnesota, a mile from where I’m standing right now, there are 150 majors in eleven colleges, many of them tailored precisely for specific kinds of vocations. And then there are smaller — like two thousand or three thousand — liberal-arts colleges, which offer a blend of general education and vocational specialization. And there are a handful of colleges like ours: very small, with a focus on more classical education with a view to building a kind of person whose maturity and character and habits of mind and heart fit them for a life of wisdom and wonder — we like to say — and fruitfulness for Christ in any vocation.
Fourth, we should always remember that a decision at age seventeen about college or major or vocation does not mean you will have the same job for a lifetime. The average American changes careers three to seven times in a lifetime. Many people in midlife decide to go back to school. This is one reason we put such an emphasis at Bethlehem College on the kind of habits of mind and heart that will bear fruit in all vocations, because students may think they know what they’re going to do five years from now, but they don’t know what they’re going to do twenty years from now. But they will be a kind of person twenty years from now, and we would like to help that be the right kind of person.
Fifth, there is no sure connection between choosing a major and earning a certain level of income over a lifetime. Some specialized majors do open doors to higher-income professions. That’s true — like medicine, say. But far, far more influential, in general, in a person’s success and income are character traits: initiative, discipline, self-control, ambition, creativity, relational wisdom, vision, analytical skills, problem-solving insight, integrity, faithfulness, steadfastness. Give me a person like that; they will do something with their lives, and they’ll probably be well paid for it too. Some of those traits come from our genes, our parents’ genes, but some are learned and refined with good teachers and life experience.
Besides thinking about income, Jesus says, “Seek the kingdom first, and all these things will be added to you” (see Matthew 6:33) — the practical necessities of life. So, I would say don’t think income. Don’t make it ever a deciding factor in choosing a major or a vocation. Make it way down the list of your priorities when making those choices.
Five Guidelines for Choosing a Major
So, with those five observations setting the stage, here are my guidelines for those who are choosing a vocation or a college or a major, who don’t want to waste their lives but make them count for the glory of God.
1. Aim at God’s glory.
Let’s start right there with the glory of God. The Bible says, “Whatever you do,” — choosing a school, choosing a major, choosing a vocation — “do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Or, “Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17). One way to turn this guideline into a question would be this: When you consider a major or a possible vocation, do you get excited about the ways you could glorify God or make much of Jesus in this major or in this vocation? Or do you have to bracket that whole question because it bothers you; it just gets in the way? That’s not a good sign.
2. Pursue personal holiness.
Since the Bible is clear in 1 Thessalonians 4:3 that “this is the will of God, your sanctification” — your holiness, your godliness, your moral rectitude — do you have hesitations that this major or this vocation might compromise or hinder your sanctification, or do you get excited about how this path might advance your own holiness, your pursuit of godliness?
3. Consider your gifts.
Do your intellectual, emotional, and physical abilities — call them God’s gifts that define much of who we are — fit this major or vocation? The biblical analogy here is the body with many members or parts. One person is a hand, another is an ear, another is a nose. We are all so different by God’s design, and we should not try to be what we aren’t, and we should try to know the unique way that God has made us to be and then ask, “Does that fit with this major or this vocation?” I don’t think God made round holes for square bolts. He wants there to be a fitness.
4. Ponder your desires.
Very closely connected with those gifts is the question of your recurrent desires. Now, I don’t mean flash-in-the-pan desires right after a conference or something, but ever-returning desires. They just crop up over the years. They seem to be circling back because there’s something in me that makes me this way. I am assuming that these desires are growing in the heart that has a passion for holiness and for the glory of God.
Now, I know not all desires are good guidance, but many of them are. The psalmist prays that God would incline our hearts for guidance (Psalm 119:36; 141:4). In other words, “Give me desires, God. Incline my heart for the discovery of your ways.” So, as you submit your entire life to the glory of God, what desires keep growing up in that soil? What kind of activity do you feel at home in? My mind, my emotions, my body have come home.
5. Pay attention to needs.
Let the needs of the world have their proper effect on shaping your education and vocation. Of course, the needs of the world are spiritually and materially immeasurable. You can’t be led by all of them. So, here are two ways to put that last question in order to make it livable, I think:
What needs of the world are you moved by over and over again? How has God wired you to respond to the needs of the world? What kind of good do you repeatedly feel drawn to do for others? That’s one question.
What connections do you see between your gifts, your at-homeness, and the needs of the world?Bible, Fellowship, Prayer
So, those are my five guidelines for choosing a major, choosing a vocation, or thinking about the future of your life and how to spend your time so as not to waste it. And as you ponder them, do it in this way: Be saturated continually with the Bible. Be embedded in a healthy church that counsels you, surrounds you, helps you recognize who you are and know what your gifts are. And finally, be continually in prayer. God won’t let you waste your life if you seek him like this.