So what's your job description?

I originally posted a shorter version of this as a response to my friend's blog.

I think what I’ve come to understand about our place in God’s plan is that we must be fervent in our present plans but not treat them as sacred, being unafraid to abandon them the moment God calls us elsewhere. Not that we should see our present places as a waiting room for something greater, but that we should see the entirety of our life, in all its convolution, as being a full realization of the glory of God in our lives.

My feeling is this: I don’t think Peter, John, and James were in the wrong vocation as fishermen. I'm sure that if any of us were sent back in time and met Peter, John and James in the days leading up to their momentous first encounter with Jesus we would all be shocked and appalled at their seeming lack of preperation for the role that we know they are going to undertake. We might even wonder if their lives as fishermen are a mistake of some sort, shouldn't they have been going to temple and studying the word this whole time? Shouldn't they be experts in the law?

But we forget that God, in his full knowledge and power, chose three uneducated, unprepared fishermen from Galilee to be the first called to be his disciples. We have to believe that those were the best possible men (excuse my gender biased word) for the job! Who are we to question God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'" (Rom 9:20).

I originally wrote that "I'm sure God wanted them to be the best possible fishermen" but I don't quite agree with that. Maybe, he wanted them to be bad fishermen so that he could call them, knowing their spirits might be too weak otherwise (I don't think God puts us in impossible situations for us). But I do believe that he did call them to be a perfect Peter, John, and James respectively. What I mean by that is that God calls each of us to extremely unique lives, to classify them into simple vocational terms "teacher", "doctor", "missionary", etc is to limit God! Our callings are unique enough that each one deserves it's own name, its own person, and its own place in God's plan.

I think what hinders us most is that we attach titles and job descriptions to ourselves and think that these have to some how fit into God's plan! I'm sure that there are some people that God calls to very traditional career paths, with logical advancement, and steady growth. Not all of us though! By locking ourselves into high school -> college -> grad school -> career stage 1 -> career stage 2, etc, etc, etc we are placing limits our our ability to see God's calling!

I do believe that up until that point God did want them to be fishermen doing their thing but, had they not dropped their nets and followed Jesus after he called them they would have been in the wrong place doing the wrong thing. And who knows what connection their lives as fishermen had to their lives as disciples (other than giving Jesus the opportunity to say his awesome line, ‘from now on you will catch men’), there could have been no connection beyond that! But if that was it, it