Well, what am I good at?
Ask somebody. People will affirm it in your life. Make sure that your passion and profession sync up. I want to read a verse to you that might seem strange under this passion-based profession, but let me just unpack it for a second. Proverbs 22:6, Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.
Wait a minute, Ed. You moved from work to parenting and kids?
Yeah. How many parents do we have? Raise your hand. Parenting is challenging, isnt it? I love it, but it is challenging. We have four kids and they are all different. That in and of itself will just mess you up. One of the biggest responsibilities we have as parents is to see the giftedness of our kids and give them opportunities. We see what puts wind in their sails, what really gives them confidence, what they do well. We applaud them and coach them and say, Go for it!
Think about someone right now who is experiencing the joy of human labor. You can just tell it. They have the joy of human laborthe river guide, the wellness technician, the basketball coach, the car detailer. I guarantee that if you go back in their past and polled them, I bet you, as kids they manifested those passions and those gifts that they are showcasing today as an adult.
Proverbs 22:6 says Train up a child in the way he should what? Go.
The picture behind this Hebrew language is beautiful. Its a picture of a hunter that will go out and search for a bow. He would find the limb with the natural bend and take that limb and make a bow out of it, and shoot arrows with great trajectory. He wouldnt see a bow that was bent one way and try to bend it the other way. That would be stupid.
So many parents tell their kids, You are going to play football. You are going to be a doctor. You are going to be a cheerleader, because mommy didnt make cheerleading. And we want to do this, dont we? Its a natural thing to want to turn our kids into what we maybe didnt do or wanted to do. Yet, we have to expose them to different avenues of life and see what they are good at and applaud them.
Ed Young Ministries stated that we have a huge responsibility to lead them into the right profession. So Ive got to ask you right now: when you think about your profession, do your gifts and everything sync up? They should, because God wants them to. Life is too short to hate work. We shouldnt hate it; its a God thing. So develop it.
