I’m the kind of guy that you just want to hate… Those seem like strong words when taken out of context, but that was said of me when a friend of mine was introducing my wife to someone. I believe his description of me was something along the lines of, “He’s the kind of guy that you just want to hate because he knows how to do everything.”
I’m not one to flaunt my talents and skills, but there are a lot of things that just come easy or natural to me. I have been blessed with a number of gifts ranging from the deeply artistic to the highly analytical. While this may seem like something that anyone would hope for, I find it to be more of a burden in my current life season. While it’s great to have the ability to solve problems, design systems, create art, and develop abstract ideas, I find it hard to understand where I should put my focus.
I am good at a lot of things, but I don’t know that I would categorize any of those things as great. When looking at individuals and companies that go from Good to Great, it becomes obvious that a major factor is that they are intentional about being highly focused. One of the speakers that I had the privilege of hearing at the Global Leadership Summit has written books on this subject, and the first thing you see on his website sums it up quite well:
Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.
Jim Collins – Great By Choice
I have raw talent that allows me the ability to be good at things from leading worship to troubleshooting computers, creating stage designs to counseling students, building websites to creative writing, and designing graphics to building structures. I don’t want to just be good and do good things though. I want to be great at something and do great things for The Kingdom of God.
I feel like I could be great at any one of those things. Another Jim Collins concept is to understand what you can be best at rather than just aiming to be the best. I do not yet know what I can be the best at, and having a lot of options to pursue only makes finding what I can be best at more difficult.
If I were to rate my vocational options in order of preference, they would all be about the same. I know that I am still young and have plenty of time to figure this out, but I grow more impatient and anxious every time I think about it. What if the thing I can be best at is not something I want to do? What if I figure out what I really want to do and it turns out that I am only mediocre at best?
This is just one of the internal struggles that weighs me down. I’m nearly thirty and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
*Image courtesy of GuruStump.com
Tony a lot of people struggle with this. I am a pastor turned into a freezer orderfiller for Walmart. In the 2 years that I had the privilege of being a pastor for my job, I was encouraged and saw that God had gifted me for the ministry.
Now 5 years after resigning that position and over 300 resumes and only 1 interview, I am still not a pastor. After seriously considering making a career out of Walmart, I refuse to promote within the company. Why? I am good at what I do there. I have seen and been told any manager in that building would want me on their shift. I have a strong understanding of how to run my work area. I have been trained to run my work area. On and on and on and on . . . The General Manager of the building wants me to promote. So why won’t I do it?
Because it is not my passion. It does not get me excited. It is not what causes me to want to proclaim the greatness of God. When I orderfill, I do not sense a pressing of the Spirit of God upon me.
What is your passion? What has God placed upon your heart to do? Not what are your skills, but what has the Spirit of God filling you to proclaim the greatness of God? Use your skills to do just that.
There in lies my biggest problem. I don’t quite know what my passions are. I can be passionate about many things, but does that make them a passion of mine? Do passions change over time or do they remain? Maybe they grow or become more refined.
I know that I have a passion to see the Gospel of Jesus Christ spread to as many people as possible through whatever means necessary. I am using my gifts/skills to do that now, but there is the constant feeling that God has put so much more potential in me that I have yet to tap into.
The technical skills I put to use in my job are much like your situation. Although I know that my skills are being used in a way that relates to my core passion, it does not give me that sense of excitement either. I don’t leave church on a weekend with a desire to proclaim His Good News after pouring my energies into the technical production side of making church work.
I’ve started to pursue endeavors that get me excited, but to really pursue the things that fire me up often results in burnout because I have a knack for spreading myself too thin across too many responsibilities. The result is a haze around what my passions could be to the point that I have a difficult time recognizing them.
That, in addition to the distraction of bills and the encouragement to pursue more education has created a whirlwind around me that is hard to navigate through. I think you may have experienced some of the same feelings in the past.
I am open to anything that God has for me to do. I just have a tough time unclogging my ears to hear Him clearly.
Thank you for posting this. It encourages me to know that there are people older than I am that are still trying to figure out what their passions are and how to use them for God. I have felt like people I meet think I have to have it figured out right after I had graduated high school. What are you going to do with your life? That question comes from everyone I meet it seems. And when I think about it I get overwhelmed by the options I have. I really don’t want to go to college before I know what I want to do.
I totally understand. I thought after college, I would find myself in a job where I would want to be the rest of my life. I’ve had the same feelings you have about starting on my Masters Degree, but after 1 day of prayer, God started giving me confirmations that I should start on my Masters. I don’t know where I will be when I finish. I don’t even know if the degree I get will be put to use within 10 years of completion. But I know that one of my next steps if post-graduate studies.
Sometimes God shows you the big picture of His plan for you, but most often he only shows you enough to take the next step. Sometimes He doesn’t even show you that much, and you have to either wait or step out in faith.
Although you wouldn’t connect my undergrad degree directly to what I am doing now, I wouldn’t trade what I learned there for anything. Don’t wait too long before going to college. You might not know what you want to be when you grow up, but you’ll know when it’s time to that next step.
I was 42 years old before I “found what I wanted to be when I grew up” – then I knew beyond a shadow of doubt I was right where HE wanted me to be. In actuality, I had been all along. It wasn’t until I started working for Pat though that I really realized that all of those other jobs and life experiences were there in preparation for the work I do now. I’ve found that because of what I’ve been through I can so much better relate to the people God puts in my path on a day to day basis at work. I know that it is terribly frustrating to not feel you’re doing what you’re most passionate about, or even to know what that passion really is, but remember that HE knows exactly where you are and has a purpose for you being where you are and as well as a plan for your future that fits so very perfectly within HIS purpose and plan. Know of our love and prayers for you.