A few months back, Forbes magazine did a report on the 10 Happiest Jobs. And, big surprise, clergy came out at number 1. Some of the other jobs in the top ten are financial services salesmen (9), physical therapists (3), and heavy equipment operators (10).
One of the comments on the article was interesting: one minister said that everyone who took being part of the clergy as a job, left to find something else to do. It is a calling not a job.
Another asked why being a stay-at-home mom wasn’t on the list? Obviously, according to Forbes it isn’t a job. Instead, it’s a calling.
Reflecting on this a few months out, I think this story could have been title: The Secular World Finally Understands What a Vocation Is. Beyond clergy, many of the other jobs are beyond jobs to being almost vocational. Nobody succeeds as an artist (7) or author (4) unless they have some kind of calling to it. Unless you are called to it, who would stand in front of 30 8-year olds 5 hours a day and teach them spelling and grammar? Or who would sit in an office and invite people in to explain all their problems? Or who would regularly run into burning buildings to save people they will never meet again?
Yet, teachers (5 & 6), psychologists (8), and firefighters (2) are on the list. As an example of this being a calling, I know one young woman who teaches English, Spanish and French in high school and she relaxes by reading grammar texts that 99.9% of us would consider a brick. Someone needs that calling or we speak bad would.
In other words, those who take the jobs that seem to be less in this world win not only in the next but also here. If you have given something up, you will get back more in return. Jesus said: “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:25)
