Being a fresh graduate who had entered the professional world for a little while – this was a straight forward question that I asked myself. Not with a skeptical heart, but with a genuine confusion seeking for an answer.
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As a disclaimer, this writing will not answer the following questions: “Does believing in God make us success?” or “Will God help me reach my dream?”; but this is rather a testimony towards how God reveals Himself in whatever we do, in school, in family, in community, including in a vocation.
During a group discussion, a friend threw a statement on the table:
“It’d be super easy to see God in our works when we are working as doctors, environmentalist, moms, or social workers. They’re nurturing and helping out people and nature. But I’m taking computer science as my major, I’m not sure how does that relate to God in any way?”. Same goes with me. I’m working in a bank, and I, too, encountered the same obstacle.
My Current Vocation, God, and His Glory
To explain briefly, my work is highly related to process. I need to relook at how things are being processed, how we could improve or cut any unnecessary steps, and to propose anything that would be helpful in saving our time and resources. If I were to testify God’s work in my life, my current vocation would be the last thing I’d share. Not because I’m not thankful of it or because God did not help me throughout, but because I couldn’t see God at work. I could not see Him in my daily routines. This, though, might not only be relevant to those holding some occupations, but also to some of us who are at some point of time called to be care takers of the elders/ special needs, housewives, and whoever that are prone to be drowned in mundanity.
Until one day, I realised how complicated all these processes are, how much time and energy is taken to establish a single process of transaction, and how many reviews it requires to create a seamless and efficient process. Not to forget, this is all man-made, as perfect as one might expect it to be, there are still errors here and there.
How, then, does this finally lead me to the beauty of God?
God, too, is the God of process. He established all processes happening in our human anatomy including the process of digesting the food that comes into our mouth, the shape and detail of each different tooth, the function of all organs in our digestive system, how nutrients are being absorbed by our bodies – making us as alive as we are today – are all created by God alone. Studying and specializing this whole digestive anatomy might require us years to complete; and yet He did not create that through trials and errors like humans do, He did it simply by His Words (Gen 1:26). This convicted me that there is no possible way that the world was created by a random momentum in the past. Through our daily lives too, we know from the bottom of our hearts that someone must have created it. As simple as a bank will not work if someone did not establish all the system architecture in the first place.
The psalmist wrote (Psalm 19:1-4a) :
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
Without having the ability to actually express/speak anything, the sky alone has declared the glory of God. Why did the writer use sky as the first object in the passage? One might use trees, or mountains, or any natural objects to explain the Divine’s creation, but why does the sky particularly proclaim his handiwork? The reason, I believe, is because sky is not alien to the readers. Anyone in any time in the history, in any part of the world, is familiar to the sky. “How, then, do the blinds testify the work of God when he can’t see the beauty of His creation?”, one might ask. The grace that we receive each and everyday has delivered its own message; as the beautiful Psalm continues: day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. The mere fact that we are living and experiencing the passing of the days should have affirmed us of God’s glory, grace, and mercy on His people.
Coming up to this point I was trying to find an adjective that would describe Him. He is .. smart? .. creative? .. skilful? .. genius? ??? and none seemed to perfectly fit what I was trying to say. Each word that came through my mind did not only distort but also degrade who He is. Then I paused and realised that none of these words will ever do justice to the vast and the depth of His thoughts and wisdom because God is, as plain as it is, GOD (Ex 3:14, Jer 32:27).
“There are countless proofs both in heaven and on earth, which testify to his marvellous wisdom. Nor are these only proofs which are hard to comprehend, and intelligible only through the study of astronomy, medicine, and natural science. They are visible even to the dullest and the most ignorant, so that the eye, once opened, is constrained to witness these things.
It is of course true that people who are schooled in the liberal arts or who have had some taste of them are especially helped to plumb the secrets of divine wisdom. Yet ignorance of these things does not stop anyone observing much skilful design in God’s works, and being led as a result to marvel at the skill of the worker.”
John Calvin in Institutes of the Christian Religion (1541)
Takeaways
To be able to see the relation between God and my vocation is quite a long journey for me… but in the end I found that it wasn’t the work itself that spoke to me, but the grace of God which has made it. One can be an astronomer, a physicist, or even a theologian and feel numb seeing the marvellous handiwork of the Creator. While one can be a humble sweeper on the street and yet sees that the sparrows are being taken care by the Father.
The realisation of God’s power and wisdom shall not only make us convinced of who God is – because the devil too, believes that He is God, and he trembles! (James 2:19). As David wrote in Psalm 19; after praising God’s creation in verse 1 to 6, verse 7 onwards abruptly shifts to describe the perfectness of God’s words.
“The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes”
So instead, this shall lead us to an act of obedience before the Lord, submitting ourselves under the authority of God’s words. The depth of God’s wisdom that implies in the creation shall testify that the word of God worths more than anything in this world, even the precious gold and honey (Psalm 19:10).
All in all, God is beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!, peeps. He works in ways we can’t and won’t be able to comprehend. This is only a tiny testimony out of countless different stories of how God reveals Himself through a vocation. I’m hopeful that this writing (or similar stories) will remind me once again in the future that God once allowed me to see all these things during my 20s. And I hope that during the difficult days I could look up to the sky and testify again the glory of God.
Amelia Amadeo 