Gift

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12.1-13; Matthew 4.1-11


I saw the dentist the other day. I only mention this because, well, let’s say it has been awhile. I don’t have an exact date, but I recall the young people at the time getting excited about a new band called Nirvana fronted by a guy named Kurt Cobain. So yeah, it was probably time to seek out a dentist again. You know, get my once every ten or fifteen year checkup.

Our own Deb Simpson saw me and cleaned my teeth. We discussed this nugget - that dentists have the highest suicide rate among the professions. I had heard this before I think. It falls under category of those things “that everyone knows.” I wanted to know if it was true. I came across this statistic:

Suicide rates among dentists are 7% higher than the average working age population according to researcher Steve Stack. He says that the factors contributing to that are relatively low status of dentists in the medical field; their strained relationships with many of their clients; and that “few people enjoy going to the dentist.”

Let all the people say Amen.

There are other professions that have higher rates of suicide than dentists – sheepherders and woolworkers are a couple. Apparently those sheep aren’t so easy to work with. All that talk about being “sheepish” is a crock. Those sheep have the wool pulled over our eyes, if you ask me. . .But I don’t want to just bleat on about this.. The profession with the highest rate of suicide? Psychiatry. That’s a whole nuther subject.

In general, though, researchers find suicide rates very unpredictable and unmeasurable. Occupation doesn’t seem to be a reliable predictor or a very good explanation of why someone might commit suicide.

I decided then, to ask another question.

Which jobs make for the happiest people?

They did a study recently in the UK asking this very question. Here is what they found:

Happiest Professions

Hairdressers 40%
Clergy 24%
Chefs/cooks 20%
Plumbers 20%

This makes sense. Hairdressers and plumbers can see immediate results from their work. The pipe either leaks or doesn’t leak anymore – no grey areas there. There’s good money in leaky pipes. And as far as hairdressers go, my hairdresser is always happy to see me. There are no real surprises for her when she cuts my hair. I’m easy money.


Christians believe that personal happiness is only one ingredient in living a meaningful life. We believe that God bids us to come and make his kingdom business more important than our personal business. In fact, the Kingdom is our business. Our vocation, the Latin here is vocation which means calling, is to do “everything as unto the Lord.” Everything we do, in the relational world, business world, academia, you name it, is to directly or indirectly bring honor to the Creator.

Frederick Buechner writes that the kind of work God calls you to is work that

(a) you need to do and (b) that the world 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 cigarette ads, 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 requirement (b), but if you’re bored and depressed by it, chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping your patients much either. Niether the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.


“where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” This is poetic truth. But in reality, it’s also sometimes difficult to find. Left on our own we may never get to that place of true vocation. But God doesn’t leave us on our own. He comes along with us. In fact, he’s probably also ahead us, waiting on us.

“I tell you about new things before they even happen.” Isaiah 42.9


Vocation not only expresses a “job” but really is the whole picture of what we spend our lives in. We are familiar with people working more than one job. Well think of vocation as all the things you do to bring glory to the Kingdom. It may be that you are a dental hygienist by day and a children’s ministry leader by night and weekend. It may be that you area student by day and a youth ministry worker all other times. You may crunch numbers where you make your money, but it might be the Bible study you lead that gets you fired up every week. The key is, we’re doing our whole day and whole week with God.

“All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit who apportions each individually as he wills.” 1 Corinthians 12.11


God gives us the gift of his presence as we are trying to figure out our vocation and calling. Paul emphasizes the variety of callings but the singular way to live in the will of God, and that is by the gift and power of the Holy Spirit.

Don’t seek to know what your gift is before you are intentionally seeking relationship with God by the power of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, you deceive yourself. You can try to do all kinds of good stuff, but if it’s not God-fueled, you will flame out, or fizzle out. Either way, you’re out.

God wants you in – in the game, in the business of Kingdom coming. Jesus had every earthly reason to go ahead and make things happen his way. Grab the bull by the horns, build up his own kingdom. But to that temptation he said, “I will wait for the word that comes from the mouth of God.”

If you have trouble picturing your call of God, consider the story of Esther. Esther was a young Jewish girl called to be queen in the court of King Xerxes, king of Persia. She got to be queen, essentially, by winning a beauty contest. The King held sort of like a Miss Persia contest with 127 contestants. Esther won. She was “lovely in form and features.” She was a trophy wife. She had no power in the kingdom. She was there because the King had killed the former queen when she failed to please him. She was there to look pretty. And that could have been pretty much her life.

Except that events were in motion concerning the people of Israel who were subject to this King. The king’s chief of staff, Haman, had been offended by a leading Jew named Mordecai. In anger, Haman conspired to have the King slaughter all the Jews in revenge. Mordecai gets word of this plan and goes to an unlikely person for help. He goes to the beauty queen.

Mordecai tells Esther she must go to the king and intercede on behalf of her people. But Esther was not trained for this moment. It was against the law for her to approach the king without being first summoned. Esther knew what happened to her predecessor. The king didn’t love her; she was just a part of the harem.

But then Mordecai spoke these words that echoed in her heart, “Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”

Esther requested to pray and fast for three days before she approached the king. “And when this is done, I will go to the king, even thought it is against the law.

And then she spoke these words of courage and magnificence – “And if I perish, I perish.”

There were depths in Esther that even she did not suspect – as perhaps there are in you. There is only one way to find out. Receive the gift. Use the gift. Follow the call.