A great quote

This from my good buddy Nate Sanderson…

“My leadership reading took me through an author’s understanding of vocation or our calling in life. He cites Frederick Buechner’s explanation of “how do we know what this is?” which reads:

“There are different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than that of society, say, or the superego, or self-interest. By and large a good rule for finding out is this: the kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by your work, the chances are that you’ve not only bypassed (a), but probably aren’t helping your patients much either…. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Buechner, F., Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: Harper-Collins, 1973), p. 95

~ by Marty Boller on July 7, 2009.