Tournier on God’s Presence in All Vocations

“The valuable thing is to see our job as the task which God has entrusted to us, and to accomplish it in that spirit, allowing ourselves to be guided by Him. The valuable thing is to see our jobs, as well as all our other activities, as an adventure directed by God. In religious circles people have gotten into the habit of restricting the idea of vocation to the call of the ministry in the church or perhaps to a medical or teaching career. This tendency clearly indicates the distinction we make in our minds between the things of the Spirit and secular things.

For the fulfillment of His purpose God needs more than priests, bishops, pastors, and missionaries. He needs mechanics and chemists, gardeners and street sweepers, dressmakers and cooks, tradesmen, physicians, philosophers, judges, and shorthand typists. “My brethren,” writes St. James, “show no partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.” (James 2:1) Having a vocation means approaching everything one does in a spirit of vocation, looking upon it as an adventure shared with God. “In all toil there is profit” (Proverbs 14:23) or, as Calvin put it, in his pungent style, “there can be no work, however vile or sorted, that does not glisten before God, and is not right precious, provided that in it we serve our vocation...Every man in his place ought to deem that his estate is, as it were, a station assigned him by God.

I do not serve God only in the brief moments during which I am taking part in a religious service, or reading the Bible, or saying my prayers, or talking about Him in some book I am writing, or discussing the meaning of life with a patient or a friend. I serve him quite as much when I am giving a patient an injection, or lancing an abscess, or writing a prescription, or giving a piece of good advice. Or again, I serve Him quite as much when I am reading the newspaper, traveling, laughing at a joke, or soldering a joint in an electric wire. I serve him by taking an interest in everything, because He is interested in everything, because He has created everything and has put me in His creation so that I may participate in it fully.” (Paul Tournier, The Adventure of Living, page 209-10)

See also -- Tournier on Work as a Divine Gift (& Calling)