I’m Not Good at My Job — Is the Lord Telling Me to Quit?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Lately on the podcast, we've covered a lot of ground

00:00:06.840 | on work-related questions,

00:00:09.040 | advice for Christians who work Sunday mornings,

00:00:11.320 | how to avoid idolizing a career, things like that.

00:00:14.180 | Today's question is about workplace competence.

00:00:16.520 | If I consistently fail at work,

00:00:19.340 | is God calling me to quit?

00:00:21.240 | It's a good, honest question from a young woman

00:00:23.220 | stuck inside a vocational dilemma.

00:00:25.900 | Dear Pastor John, thank you for this podcast.

00:00:27.720 | I'm simply not good at my job.

00:00:29.840 | That's the truth of it.

00:00:31.080 | I've met with my bosses to figure out what to improve.

00:00:33.940 | I've implemented those things.

00:00:35.560 | Nothing seems to work.

00:00:37.200 | I'm a teacher and my students' academic success

00:00:39.320 | is being affected.

00:00:40.700 | I'm tempted to resign for their sake.

00:00:42.640 | However, I did feel like the Lord called me here.

00:00:45.600 | Now I wonder if I heard wrong.

00:00:47.120 | Can you give me advice?

00:00:48.160 | What role does success play

00:00:49.600 | in discerning my vocational calling?

00:00:52.560 | Let's begin with two biblical guidelines

00:00:56.700 | about our sense of calling in life.

00:00:59.640 | And then a couple of illustrations from my own life

00:01:02.600 | and maybe even my wife, Noel, that might be helpful.

00:01:06.600 | First guideline, the subjective sense of our calling

00:01:11.600 | should be confirmed by our objective fitness

00:01:16.600 | for the calling.

00:01:17.960 | That's the guideline.

00:01:18.840 | Or here's another way to put it, perhaps.

00:01:21.560 | Our personal sense of calling should be informed

00:01:27.160 | by objective criteria that might include biblical truth

00:01:32.160 | or might include personal competencies or both.

00:01:37.360 | We see the guidelines when we turn to the New Testament

00:01:42.560 | and consider the calling, for example,

00:01:45.320 | to eldership or pastoring in the church.

00:01:49.960 | I think it's gonna apply in general.

00:01:52.240 | And so I'm drawing out a guideline

00:01:54.880 | from what the New Testament says,

00:01:57.560 | what Paul says about the qualification

00:02:00.800 | or the calling of an elder in 1 Timothy 3.

00:02:04.160 | He says this, "If anyone aspires,"

00:02:08.400 | now there's a subjective experience that a man is having.

00:02:12.360 | "If anyone aspires to the office of overseer

00:02:16.360 | or elder or pastor, he desires,"

00:02:19.520 | and there's another subjective expression,

00:02:22.040 | "He desires a noble task."

00:02:25.560 | So there's this aspiration, there's this desire.

00:02:29.400 | He senses that this would be a gratifying,

00:02:32.920 | fruitful way to spend my life.

00:02:36.160 | And then Paul adds this, "Therefore, an overseer must be,"

00:02:41.160 | and then he gives 15 measurable qualifications.

00:02:47.280 | And you kind of say, "Whoa, I thought his desire

00:02:49.840 | and his aspiration is the key thing."

00:02:52.560 | And of course, it is key.

00:02:54.920 | Nobody's gonna be an elder

00:02:56.240 | if he doesn't have the God-given passion for it.

00:02:59.320 | And one of those 15 qualifications is able to teach.

00:03:04.200 | So I think this would mean that if time and experience

00:03:09.160 | prove that a man's teaching ministry is unhelpful

00:03:14.160 | or even harmful, and I don't mean to communicate

00:03:18.400 | that you need to be a great teacher to be a good pastor,

00:03:21.440 | just competent, just competent, helpful.

00:03:23.520 | People get help when you open the Bible.

00:03:26.080 | It would probably mean,

00:03:28.160 | like if he proved to be unhelpful or harmful,

00:03:31.240 | it would probably mean that either a mistake was made

00:03:34.800 | in discerning his calling

00:03:37.040 | and he should seek another kind of ministry,

00:03:38.920 | or maybe he just lost his ability.

00:03:41.920 | That does happen.

00:03:42.760 | A man can lose capacities that he had 50 years ago.

00:03:48.240 | And he might no longer be apt to teach

00:03:50.640 | and therefore no longer qualified to be an elder.

00:03:53.560 | So the first guideline is this.

00:03:56.160 | In general, the subjective sense of our calling from God

00:04:01.160 | should be informed, confirmed

00:04:05.840 | by the objective fitness for the calling.

00:04:09.520 | Here's the second guideline for our sense of calling.

00:04:13.600 | God intends each of his children,

00:04:16.760 | and I would say each of his creatures, even unbelievers,

00:04:20.320 | in general to be good at some things

00:04:24.440 | and not good at other things.

00:04:27.480 | He intends every human being to be good at some things

00:04:30.520 | and not good at other things so that they fit together.

00:04:35.280 | Now I'm thinking about the Christians now.

00:04:36.760 | They fit together like a diverse body, body parts,

00:04:41.760 | not like links in a chain.

00:04:45.120 | Links in a chain are all the same,

00:04:48.320 | and the chain works precisely

00:04:50.720 | because each link does the same thing.

00:04:53.520 | It holds.

00:04:54.760 | A link doesn't hold like all the other links are holding.

00:04:57.800 | The whole chain doesn't work.

00:04:59.680 | Paul's picture of the church,

00:05:01.880 | and I think it's a good guideline for life in general,

00:05:04.520 | is this.

00:05:05.680 | The body does not consist of one member but of many.

00:05:09.200 | If the whole body were an eye,

00:05:11.680 | where would be the sense of hearing?

00:05:13.360 | If the whole body were an ear,

00:05:15.280 | where would be the sense of smell?

00:05:17.240 | But as it is, God arranged the members of the body,

00:05:20.320 | each one of them, as he chose.

00:05:23.240 | As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

00:05:27.320 | So an ear is not good at being an eye.

00:05:32.320 | An eye is not good at being an ear.

00:05:36.920 | So to be not good at something is not a condemnation.

00:05:42.600 | Goodness gracious, how many things I'm not good at.

00:05:45.760 | I would just die if I had to feel bad about all those.

00:05:49.120 | It's not even a loss, Paul says.

00:05:51.880 | If you find what you are made for

00:05:54.840 | and you know how you fit in the world,

00:05:58.480 | this is just a glorious plus,

00:06:01.240 | even if you can't do many other things.

00:06:03.840 | It does require some humility

00:06:07.080 | because you can ruin your life

00:06:09.840 | with envy of others' competencies.

00:06:13.680 | A finger can make his life totally miserable

00:06:17.360 | by wishing every day he were an elbow.

00:06:20.520 | And I've had to work hard

00:06:22.440 | because there are certain things that as a scholar,

00:06:26.200 | I'm supposed to be better at, supposedly,

00:06:28.280 | and I've just had to preach to myself over the years,

00:06:31.040 | "Piper, you're never gonna be like this, so get over it.

00:06:36.040 | You have to just do what you can do

00:06:39.080 | and stop trying to be an elbow."

00:06:41.240 | So I would say these two guidelines suggest

00:06:45.480 | that if we find ourselves in a position

00:06:47.480 | that does not fit with our competencies

00:06:51.120 | and it becomes evident to others

00:06:53.480 | that our efforts are not effective

00:06:56.400 | in accomplishing the goals of the position,

00:06:59.240 | then God is probably leading us to another kind of work.

00:07:04.040 | So let me give two illustrations

00:07:06.040 | from my life and Noel's life together

00:07:09.480 | that might be encouraging.

00:07:10.880 | I hope they are.

00:07:12.080 | I hope that it won't be too disconcerting

00:07:15.720 | that a job change might be fitting.

00:07:19.040 | In the spring of 1966,

00:07:21.360 | finishing my sophomore year in college,

00:07:23.640 | I was overwhelmed with a sweet confidence

00:07:28.120 | that finally God had made it plain

00:07:31.640 | that I should pursue a pre-med course

00:07:35.040 | and aim at the vocation of medical doctor.

00:07:37.760 | Oh, what a relief it was to finally know

00:07:40.680 | after two years in college of just being a lit major

00:07:43.520 | and not knowing what I was gonna do.

00:07:45.640 | So much so that I changed my summer plans,

00:07:49.080 | took chemistry to catch up with the pre-med sequence,

00:07:52.560 | but as you know, things did not go the way I planned.

00:07:58.480 | I did not like chemistry and that is an understatement.

00:08:04.080 | And at the end of that summer,

00:08:05.840 | I got mononucleosis, spent three weeks in the health center.

00:08:09.640 | And during that time,

00:08:10.560 | I heard a kind of preaching on the radio

00:08:13.080 | that lit a fire in me for biblical studies

00:08:15.720 | and teaching and preaching and writing

00:08:17.360 | that to this day, 53 years later, has never died.

00:08:21.800 | I'm as thrilled about being a Bible guy today

00:08:25.640 | as I was when I was 20 years old in that health center

00:08:29.400 | and so excited.

00:08:30.720 | So I would say I misread God's calling in the spring of '66.

00:08:35.720 | I heard truly God's call in the fall of '66

00:08:42.960 | because experience has validated

00:08:46.000 | that sense of hearing and call.

00:08:49.120 | And if you were to ask me,

00:08:50.400 | so here's a little lesson in providence.

00:08:52.640 | If you were to ask me today

00:08:54.920 | why God would permit such a detour,

00:08:57.640 | such a misreading of His will for my life,

00:09:02.640 | my answer would probably be

00:09:06.080 | so that I would meet Noelle Henry

00:09:08.800 | in the summer of 1966 while taking chemistry

00:09:14.880 | and marry the woman who was the perfect fit

00:09:18.400 | for my calling as a Bible guy all these years.

00:09:22.560 | I met her on my detour.

00:09:25.160 | I would not have met Noelle

00:09:27.160 | had I gone straight to the ministry in May of '66

00:09:31.480 | instead of September of '66.

00:09:34.160 | I love the providence of God.

00:09:37.160 | So one more story that this may be very, very helpful to,

00:09:41.760 | the one who wrote in.

00:09:42.920 | A few months into our marriage in 1968

00:09:45.440 | in Pasadena, California,

00:09:46.680 | Noelle had taken a job at Caltech,

00:09:48.880 | big high-powered educational institution,

00:09:52.200 | where the expectations had not been made clear to her or me.

00:09:56.880 | She was drowning in duties

00:09:59.960 | for which she had not been prepared.

00:10:02.560 | So I came home one afternoon

00:10:04.480 | and found her sitting on the side of the bed crying,

00:10:08.480 | and I was shocked and scared,

00:10:10.920 | and I said, "What happened?"

00:10:13.320 | And through her tears, she said, "I've been fired."

00:10:17.880 | That was a really low point

00:10:22.680 | in our little brand-new, what, two-month-old marriage.

00:10:26.480 | Within a month, she had found a new job,

00:10:29.960 | and three years later,

00:10:31.960 | when we were leaving Pasadena for grad school,

00:10:36.320 | she was so loved, so needed, so admired in that job

00:10:41.200 | that they didn't want to let us go.

00:10:43.920 | So all of that to say,

00:10:46.520 | we can seriously misread our sense of calling,

00:10:50.280 | and we can find ourselves in jobs

00:10:53.640 | for which we are not suited.

00:10:56.680 | And to adjust our sense of calling

00:10:59.640 | and to find a new job is nothing to be ashamed of

00:11:04.640 | if we are humble enough to admit that we're fallible

00:11:09.000 | and that we're not omnicompetent.

00:11:11.960 | - Yeah, amen, and God has a plan for us,

00:11:14.200 | even inside the detours.

00:11:15.640 | - Amen, yes, exactly.

00:11:17.120 | - Yeah, that's good.

00:11:17.960 | Thank you, Pastor John, for that counsel

00:11:19.040 | and for those personal stories as well.

00:11:21.520 | And wherever you're listening in the midst of your day,

00:11:23.320 | you may be on the way to work or from work.

00:11:25.280 | Thanks for joining us.

00:11:26.280 | Be sure to subscribe to Ask Pastor John

00:11:28.120 | in your favorite podcast app, in YouTube or in Spotify.

00:11:31.960 | For our episode archive

00:11:33.280 | or to submit a question of your own,

00:11:35.080 | go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:11:38.600 | Well, what is the deepest longing of the human heart?

00:11:42.320 | What's your deepest longing?

00:11:44.320 | What's the thing you want most?

00:11:46.840 | What craving is behind all the other desires

00:11:49.480 | that you have in your life?

00:11:50.720 | There's an answer to that question,

00:11:52.320 | and Pastor John has it from scripture for us next time.

00:11:55.720 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.

00:11:56.840 | We'll see you on Wednesday.

00:11:58.200 | (upbeat music)

00:12:00.800 | (upbeat music)

00:12:03.400 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

I’m Not Good at My Job — Is the Lord Telling Me to Quit?

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