What Is Your Occupation?

by GRIERSON, G. | Category: N/a | May 2005

Most of us have forms to fill in at some point in our lives. Included among the questions almost certainly will be the one above. There would be a variety of answers: professional, managerial, manual - from sales manager to doctor, nurse to housewife and mother. There are many honourable occupations for Christians to follow.

The question was asked of Jonah on board a ship heading for Tarshish, '"What is your occupation?"'(1) Jonah should have been heading for Nineveh with a message from the Lord of crucial importance to the people of that great city. It was the second of five questions as the sailors urgently cross-examined Jonah in their attempt to discover the reason for the furious storm that was threatening the ship and their lives. He told them, '"I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land."'(2) The terrified sailors 'knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them'.(3)

Paul's occupation

In the New Testament we read of another ship and another prophet: this time the apostle Paul is bound for Rome, a prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of the gospel.(4) During the sea voyage another storm was encountered and the ship full of sailors, Roman soldiers and prisoners, were all fearful for their lives. All except Paul that is. Paul, as an ambassador for Jesus Christ, was taking God's message of salvation to the very heart of the mighty Roman empire in absolute obedience to his Master's commandment. He had nothing on his conscience to make him fearful or ashamed. In his letter written earlier to the Christians at Rome he described himself as 'a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated (set apart) to the gospel of God'.(5)There was no doubt in Paul's mind as to his occupation! His was the most honourable occupation; not just a servant of a king but of the King of kings. In the same letter and chapter he also spells out his absolute confidence in the message he was carrying and for which he was prepared to offer his life: 'For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek'.(6)

Occupy till I come

In Luke 19:13 in the parable that the Lord Jesus told to His disciples as His death on the Cross drew near, the nobleman said to the ten servants he was leaving, 'Occupy till I come' (A.V.) Should not those words be bound upon the forehead and written upon the heart of every disciple as a daily reminder of what we should be about? We may not have been called to travel to distant countries as pioneer missionaries, but should it not be the prime concern of every disciple of the Lord to be about the King's business in whatever work department He may have placed us? There let us be His faithful witnesses in deed and word as servants called to a mighty task, a most honourable occupation, a responsibility not to be run away from.

A question to ask yourself

In one of her poems 'In Any Office', Amy Carmichael refers to the potters who 'dwell at Netaim and Gederah; there they dwelt with the king for his work'.(7) How would they have answered the question, What is your occupation? Would they have said, "We are potters" or, "We are servants of the king"? What is your occupation? is a good question to ask ourselves as we go out to work in the morning. Amy in her inimitable way writes:

My potter's wheel is where

I see a desk and office chair,

And well I know the Lord is there.

And all my work is for a King ...(8)

Whatever job we may do, let us look beyond our immediate employer and do our work 'as bondservants of Christ � as to the Lord'( 9) and strive to be fully occupied as His witnesses until the Lord comes, heeding the Lord's words in the parable, 'occupy till I come'.

References

(1)Jonah 1:8 (2)Jonah 1:9 (3)Jonah 1:10 (4)Acts 27 (5)Rom.1:1 (6)Rom.1:16 (7)1 Chr.4:23 (8)Amy Carmichael, SPCK, Towards Jerusalem (9)Eph.6:6,7

GRIERSON, G. | May 2005
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