Imagine Opportunity

All my life, I've viewed vocational challenges as exciting opportunities to grow. When "No." is the answer to, "Do I have experience doing this?" I seldom view it as a conversation-ending answer, but as a possible beginning point for a new adventure. “No.” may really mean “Not yet.”

I am not so much an adrenaline junkie or a risk-taker, as someone who believes that flexibility, creativity, and openness are keys to living a life of deep meaning, joy, and fulfillment. The longer I stay on this path, the more I recognize God's guiding hand throughout. I don't believe I was created to learn a particular skill set and be satisfied with spending the rest of my life practicing those skills in the same setting.

The critical vocational question for me is calling. Is this the time, place, and task toward which God is calling me? While the answer to this question can never be known with certainty, I've come to recognize a few familiar identifying characteristics.

Rather than basing my decision only on an examination of my own experience level, I look for places where God is already at work; ways in which divine action has already begun serendipitously clearing, plowing, and planting in people's hearts, lives, and communities; and ways that my own gifts can expand as I offer others an opportunity for growth and hope. I also look for ways that the unknowing of my anxiety are beginning to be flavored by anticipation or even excitement.

Keys, for me, are keeping the door open enough to make room for divine surprise to arrive, and surrounding myself with people who are both passionate about and open to God's penchant to "...accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine." (Ephesians 3:20)

© 2015 Todd Jenkins