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7: When You're Resigned About Your Career · Finding God at Work

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, I'm Chris.
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This is Finding God at Work.
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Just a reminder that Finding God at Work
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isn't just a podcast, it's also an online
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course.
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Check it out at FindingGodAtWork.org.
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Our current conversation with someone about their career
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and it's just clear that the fire has
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gone out.
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I had this moment with a family member
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a few years ago.
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We were kind of catching up and I
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remembered a few years earlier having a conversation
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with him about a job that he really
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loved, he was thriving in, I could see
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that he was ministering to others in that
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job just by being himself, having a kind
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of servant-hearted presence in the way he
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went about his responsibilities in that job, found
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a lot of joy in that, meaning there.
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A few years later we're catching up and
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just like looking into his eyes saying like
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the man the fire has gone out.
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He does not feel that same energy about
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his work life that he used to.
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Maybe you've been there yourself, maybe you've seen
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a friend or a family member who's been
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there.
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It's really hard to see someone be in
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that place where they just don't have that
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same hope, that same vision for their work
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life that they used to.
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Sometimes people reach a place where they're resigned
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about their career.
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They no longer really hope for more than
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what they're experiencing right now.
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They're just resigned to the way it's going
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to be.
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What do we do with that sense of
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resignation?
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I want to turn to a specific scripture
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passage, and this was suggested to me by
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a writer named Alan Noble.
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We're going to start with the scripture passage,
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but then we're going to go to what
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Alan writes about that passage as it relates
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to this kind of vocational journey we may
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find ourselves on.
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The passage is 1 Corinthians chapter 6.
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Let me just read the verses, then I'll
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give some context about them.
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Do you not know that your bodies are
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temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in
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you, whom you have received from God?
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You are not your own, you were bought
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at a price.
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Therefore honor God with your bodies.
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Key phrase there, you were not your own,
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you were bought at a price.
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Now, the bigger context of 1 Corinthians 6
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is Paul's writing to the early believers in
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the sexually promiscuous culture, not dissimilar to our
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own in some ways, and basically saying, hey,
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don't be sexually united with people you're not
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married to.
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Don't be sexually united in prostitution.
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Don't be sexually united in other relationships.
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But then his rationale that he gives for
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this is, you were not your own, you
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were bought with a price.
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That price, of course, is the blood of
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Jesus on the cross.
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Jesus, in atoning for our sins, also claims
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us as people that we belong to Jesus
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in a deep and irrevocable way.
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And if that's true, then we can't just
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go do whatever we want with our bodies,
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with our souls, with our whole beings.
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We belong to Jesus, and so the way
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we use our bodies, the way we inhabit
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the world, by God's grace, is aligned with
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the teachings of Jesus, with the way of
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Jesus, with the life that Jesus himself gives
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us and fills our bodies with, with the
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Holy Spirit that dwells in our bodies like
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God dwells in a temple.
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So that's the context, talking about sexual relationships,
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but this phrase, you were not your own,
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you were bought with a price, is also
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just a beautiful summary of the gospel in
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general and can apply to every area of
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our lives.
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And that's what Alan Noble does in a
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wonderful book, You Are Not Your Own.
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So we're going to just draw from a
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couple of his ideas in that book, and
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he specifically talks to this experience of resignation.
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But before we get to what he says
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about resignation, we need to back up and
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give a little bit more of his structure.
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So Alan Noble is an English professor.
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He reads a lot of philosophical work, so
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he's kind of drawing on the work of
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existentialist philosophers here to articulate what has become
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the kind of common trade and stock of
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how we talk about our vocations in the
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21st century in the West.
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And he calls it the insecurity of self
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belonging.
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This is what he writes, if I am
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my own and belong to myself, then any
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and all associations, ties, and relationships I have
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are voluntary.
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I might lend myself out for 40, 50,
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or 80 hours a week in exchange for
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pay.
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And I might figuratively belong to my spouse
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or kids or my community.
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But in the end, these are choices I've
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made about how I want to live my
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own life, which belongs only and ever to
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me.
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So this phrase, self belonging, is how Alan
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captures kind of the spirit of our age,
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the idea that everything begins and ends with
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us and our own free choice, our own
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self definition, and self expression.
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I think it's a really erudite naming of
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that dynamic.
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And then he has another phrase to go
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along with it.
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So he continues to write, the responsibility to
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justify our existence, to create an identity, to
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discover meaning, to choose values, and to belong.
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We might collectively refer to these as the
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responsibilities of self belonging.
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Of course, not everyone feels each of these
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responsibilities in the same way to the same
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extent or at the same time.
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You may feel tremendously burdened to live a
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significant life, while your neighbor may be quite
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obsessed with his identity.
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And over the course of the lifetime, we
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prioritize different responsibilities.
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So you kind of get the sense of
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what he's saying that if we start with
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this assumption, that it begins and ends with
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us, we define ourselves, we belong to ourselves,
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we express ourselves, then we feel the weight
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of responsibility to figure that out.
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And it looks different for different people.
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But pretty consistently in our culture, we feel
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the weight of those responsibilities.
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Okay, so that's kind of Alan Noble's overall
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structure for his book.
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And then one idea that he kind of
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hangs on that structure later in the book,
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is this idea of the spirit of affirmation,
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or the spirit of resignation.
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So that's what's going to bring us back
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to when you feel resigned about your job.
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He actually connects these two things.
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He thinks that affirmation and resignation are connected.
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So let me just read his summary of
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the spirit of affirmation and the spirit of
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resignation.
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So first affirmation, Alan writes, some people seem
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to thrive in a hyper competitive society, they
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accept their responsibilities of self belonging and capitalize
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on them.
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I am my own, they say, I belong
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to myself, society is sufficiently ordered for me
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to achieve my desires, express my identity, and
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become my true self.
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And wherever society is disordered, I can involve
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myself in the grand product of progress, so
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that if I cannot exactly become my true
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self, I can at least get closer and
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closer over time while laying the foundation for
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others to succeed, where I was prevented.
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Let's call this the posture of affirmation.
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It is an endorsement of contemporary society as
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it is basically constructed.
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But more importantly, an affirmation of self belonging.
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Yes, life is difficult, it says.
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But if you apply yourself, visualize your goals,
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believe in yourself and commit to perpetual self
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improvement through technique, you can achieve a kind
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of mastery over life, at least in comparison
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to other people, you can be responsible for
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your own existence.
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Okay, so that's the vision of affirmation.
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Again, that in line with those responsibilities of
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self belonging, the spirit of affirmation is a
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kind of yes attitude to that way of
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thinking and being in the world.
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Okay, what about resignation?
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Here's what Alan writes about that.
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While contemporary Western society appears to work well
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for a great many people, the grind of
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constant competition is unbearable for others.
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It's one thing to have to compete within
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your small town for the attention of a
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marriageable woman or for a good job.
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But once the competition goes global, as it
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has with economic globalization on the internet, the
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tools of competition rapidly expand in both quantity
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and quality, and the stakes are existential.
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At some point, you may conclude that there
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really is no competition for you.
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The fix is in the teams were picked,
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and you didn't make the cut.
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And since you cannot seriously compete, you may
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as well take your ball and go home.
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It is actually a more efficient use of
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your time to cut your losses.
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The alternative is the sunk cost fallacy continuing
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to invest time and resources into a hopeless
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cause.
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This is the posture of resignation, the resigned
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recognize and feel the responsibilities of self belonging
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just as much as the affirming, but they
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only recognize them in resignation.
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I am only ever my own, they say,
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although it promises to society will not provide
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me with the tools I need to achieve
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my desires, express my identity and become my
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true self.
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The system is broken.
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The cards are stacked against me, but I
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can perhaps still discover moments of pleasure that
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make life worth living.
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Okay, so resignation is the flip side of
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the responsibilities of self belonging.
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If we embrace them with that yes attitude
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in the spirit of affirmation, resignation is I'm
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never going to get that.
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I'm never going to be able to fulfill
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these responsibilities.
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The deck is stacked against me.
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To me, this is connected to that psychological
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concept we explored in the mental health series
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of the external locus of control right that
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sense that I don't have personal agency to
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make my own way in the world.
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I'm just helpless before circumstances.
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And again, when you see somebody who's in
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this place where they just feel resigned about
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their work, about their vocation, about their career
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as a whole, maybe even about their life
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as a whole.
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It just breaks your heart because often people
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have faced great difficulty to bring them to
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that place.
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It's not like they're making things up.
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It's not like they're they're fantasizing about problems
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that don't exist.
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They really did have that terrible boss or
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they really did suffer that trauma or they
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really did get laid off in an unfair
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turn of the economy or whatever the case
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might be.
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They're facing real pain.
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And so it's understandable that people can come
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to this place of just feeling like why
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keep fighting?
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Why keep trying to justify my existence when
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it's just never going to work?
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Okay, but then Alan Noble, I think says
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one of his most insightful things when he
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connects these two attitudes to each other when
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he talks about how affirmation can actually lead
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to resignation.
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So he writes this.
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Of the two, I believe resignation by far
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has the strongest pull at our moment in
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history.
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Modern people who devote themselves to self-improvement
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and personal excellence always eventually find themselves in
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the place of resignation.
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You can be affirming only until you are
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resigned.
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One day you're too old to play the
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game.
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You no longer have the competitive edge.
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Your beauty fades.
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Circumstances turn against you or you just grow
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bored.
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Such realizations may come all at once in
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an overwhelming revelation that leads directly to an
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existential or mid-life crisis or they may
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come in smaller niggling ways like nightly reminders
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of your inadequacy and may be more accurate
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to think of affirmation as a temporary denial
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of resignation.
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So these two postures, these two spirits are
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actually connected.
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When you start with the attitude, it's all
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about me.
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I'm going to define myself and express myself
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and compete and win.
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Where you end up is resigned with the
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sense that you can't win and the deck
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is stacked against you.
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I think Alan's insight here is really profound
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because it seems like the spirit of affirmation
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is great for as long as it works.
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But what Alan is saying here and I
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think arguing very convincingly is that nobody can
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ride that wave forever.
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Nobody can just keep winning the competition forever
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and always.
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And you can see this in stories of
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people's careers, stories of athletes, stories of musicians
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and artists.
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Everybody has periods of their life where they're
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not on top, where they're not expressing themselves
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and feeling glorious about how everything is going.
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And so this vision of self-belonging is
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inadequate to the way life actually works.
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If we try and pursue the spirit of
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affirmation, we end up in the spirit of
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resignation.
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So if you find yourself in a place
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of resignation about your job because you've ridden
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that wave of affirmation as far as it
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will go and it's come up short in
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the realities and vicissitudes of your life, the
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treatment is a renewed experience of God's grace.
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That good news that you were bought at
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a price, that you do not have to
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earn God's favor for you, that Jesus willingly
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sacrificed his own life to redeem you because
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God already loves you.
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If that's true, if it's true that God
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already loves you regardless of what you've achieved,
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regardless of how much you're able to accomplish
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this or that in your career or in
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your vocation, then there's incredible freedom to embrace
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limits, to acknowledge there are some things I'm
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not going to be able to achieve.
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There are some things that I won't experience
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in this life.
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There may be some disappointments that I just
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have to accept and live through in my
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career.
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When you're grounded in the love of God,
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the end of a career path doesn't have
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to be the end of life, the end
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of hope, or the end of love.
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There are limits in our lives if we
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accept that we can't define everything ourselves.
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But inside of those limits, there's always room
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for love.
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Now, this is how Alan puts it, belonging
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necessitates limits.
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The question is to whom we belong.
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If we belong to ourselves, then we set
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our own limits, which means we have no
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limits except our own will.
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If we belong to God, the knowing and
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abiding by his limits enables us to live
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as we were created to live, as the
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humans he designed us to be.
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The way I would put it in my
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own words is that you can't always win
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at work, but you can always love at
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work.
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Sometimes, in the ups and downs of our
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careers, we're going to realize that we're losing.
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We've lost the job, or we've lost the
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promotion, or we've lost the dream that we
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thought this career path would lead us to.
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And in those losses, if we remember the
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good news of God's grace, that he's there
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for us, that he loves us just as
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much as ever.
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Within the limits of those losses, there's still
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opportunity to love.
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We can't always win at work, but we
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can always love at work.
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And if we approach our work even in
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that great disappointment with the question, who can
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I love today and how, God will always
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show up and help us to live there.
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And that can become the meaning of our
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work each day.
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If we don't have to justify ourselves by
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the way of affirmation, then when disappointments come,
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we also don't have to fall into the
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despair of resignation.
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Instead, we can embrace the difficulty of our
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situation as a place of limitation that's still
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full of God's grace, full of God's love.
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Because we know, deep in our bones, you
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are not your own, you were bought at
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a price.
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Thank you, Lord Jesus, for paying that price,
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giving up your life for us.
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Give us the freedom of belonging to you.
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Do your work in us as we do
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our work with you.
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Thanks for listening.
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