Picking A Career

Hey, this is Tim Pratt Jr. and I want to welcome you to the podcast Student of Life. I pray that you hear something that will add value, shape, develop, and cultivate your faith in order to be the person that God desires you to be, as well as the application to see it through. Enjoy. What's up everybody, so this is episode 11, Picking a Career, and I really want to go ahead and jump straight into it. Like I said, if you want to know what's going on with season 3, please go back and listen to the trailer. Of, uh, extending season 3. But although I just will say this, season 4, I do have some plans on kind of making some change-ups and kind of bringing people along and working in collaboration. I had that intention of this, of season 3, but you know, kind of with the pandemic, kind of all to some things for me. And I know you're probably getting tired of my voice. Although this is primarily a solo podcast, I like to try to keep it around 15-20 minutes. And I know I'm about to tweak some things, you know, with the format, but I really want to start collaborating with people a lot more and just get into that collective perspective and just kind of have a dialogue and talk through disagreements or agreements and things like that. But nevertheless, let's jump into this episode, which is, like I say, uh, episode 11 of season 3, Picking a Career. Now, before I read the foundational text, I want to make something clear. Is that being a person of faith, I believe that we, we have people of faith, we have to understand that we all have equal value before God and we're all equal as human beings. I'm no more human than you, you're no more human than me. God doesn't favor me over you, he doesn't favor you over me. We're all equal. However, we have to understand that it is service to the marketplace is that what generates value, not me as a child of God and not me as a human being. We do not all bring the same level of economic service to the marketplace. So pro sports versus education, uh, pro sports versus engineering, or engineering versus, uh, criminal justice, technology, you know, all these type of things depending on the marketplace and what it dictates and what we accept That's what drives it. That's what drives the results. And so we have to understand that, that the skills, the talents that we have, and the things that we choose to cultivate, as long as like they are relevant to the marketplace, that's what's going to bring you more and more. Like, and your, your position might not be just money, it could be a host of things, but we have to truly understand it and we have to stop demonizing people because of you know, are basically blaming the marketplace on God. Now yes, God can show favor within the marketplace, but however, for the most part, it is service to the marketplace is what generates that type of value that we're looking for, not us as a person of faith and not us as a human being. So I just wanted to get that clear, you know, before we really jump into the content of this episode. And that'll kind of like, you know, lay the groundwork going forward for some of the episodes to follow. However, so our foundational text is Proverbs 19:21, and it reads as, many are the plans in a person's heart, but it's the Lord's purpose that prevails. Read that again. Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. So in other words, what this scripture is saying, that I can go plan out everything I want to. When I submit myself to God, or he's called me, chosen me, whatever terminology you want to use, it is his purpose for my life that's gonna prevail over my plans. And if I don't choose to do it, he will use my kids, he will use the next generation. His purpose is going to prevail. That's just the truth. And so one of the things that I talked about in my opening episode, like the very first episode that I started when I was branding this thing that we call life, is that I talked about how life is multifaceted and it consists of many interrelated domains. And those domains could be spiritual, finances, vocational, health, social, and so on. And although sometimes, you know, we see today, especially people that are like in ministry and they are like, you know, they write books, uh, how they have learned to kind of blend ministry and marketplace and things like that. Um, sometimes they can group these things where, you know, now having a very strong spiritual domain like that can now also kind of like vocational. So you go to seminary school, so you're just continually learning, you know, and that— and you're reaping finances from that. And then you also have it on the other side where you have somebody with a still a strong spiritual domain, but they still might have to work another job or two to help, you know, the finances. And they might have to go get educated in other areas, but although they have a very strong spiritual domain, so they have— we have to understand that they're, they're interrelated. And so whatever you're doing out there, you know, you have to find that necessarily balance of knowing that all of them have a certain importance and significance. And if I focus all on my finances and say, for instance, vocational— so I'm just like, I'm, I'm educating myself and getting money, educating myself, getting money, but I'm not pouring into my personal and the spiritual— because I just believe that God created us, he, he knows how we're wired, he knows how to direct us. And so if, if I'm not pouring heavy into that one, but I'm pouring heavy into these other ones, you know, and you can name some more, but I'm gonna be messed up from my perspective. Now you might not be, but I am. But also you can say the same with finances, okay? If my finances— if I'm, you know, have a lot on my plate and so on and so on, but I'm really drowning in, like, from a financial standpoint, having to work 2, 3, 4 jobs, it's going to take away and take me out of, you know, other spiritual— I mean, other interrelated domains. So we have to be very, you know, cognitive of that and know that a lot of these things is what makes choosing a career difficult. But that's why prayer is so important, because we have to seek God's direction. Because when we seek his direction, we're basically seeking his will for our life. That's just the truth. Like, we are seeking his direction. We are seeking his will for our life when we're seeking his direction. And so, kind of going back to the opening verse, many are the plans in a person's heart, but it's the Lord's purpose that prevails. We can create our own plan by mapping it out and turning into a roadmap that we follow, like saying, this is what's to come, this is what's next, this is phase one of our life, phase two, and so on and so on. But listen, if you don't get nothing else from it, understand this: only what God has declared over us is what's guaranteed to take place. Only what God has declared over us is what's guaranteed to take place. You can have purpose in your career. So many times we act like that, you know, because I have a career in technology or education or counseling and so on and so on. Because it's not at the local church, we believe that purpose is not in it. When we are a person of faith, that's the furthest from the truth. God knew— nothing didn't sneak up on him. He knew that a lot of people would be working 40 hours or more a week. I believe he factored purpose in it. I believe it. And so therefore, yes, you know, the local church is important, But you can have purpose in your career. Like, everybody doesn't want to be an entrepreneur. Everybody doesn't want to be a celebrity. Everybody— some people just want to do certain things out here in the field, and that's okay. And there's purpose in that. So understand that, you know, your career choice— God, when you're being led by God and you're not trying to manipulate God, which is not going to happen. But because often what we do is that we want God to approve our will or endorse our will instead of living out his. And so when we, when we get into that, then yes, we have friction, we have all this confusion and things like that. But how— well, but when we live out seeking his direction, then basically In my understanding, what I'm basically trying to say here is that it gives us a tailor-made, uh, calling— I mean, a tailor-made thing for our life. So in other words, when we seek him for the tailor calling over our lives, then we just see how, okay, oh man, wow, and hindsight is 20/20. This, oh, this was this, this is why I was here, this is that. Because I can go buy a suit off the rack in the store, but when I started getting things tailored fit, tailor-made and custom and stuff like that, I was like, wow, this is just not the same. You can't You can't replicate it no matter how close or how my measurements off the rack are. That tailor-made experience is different, and I believe that's what God wants to do with our life. So, but in that tailoring process, it's some cutting, it's some things that they have to do in order to get it just right. And so that's, that's what we have to go through and understand. Like, it's the same dynamic as we're picking a career, or, you know, in the next episode we'll talk about kind of excelling in it. But we have to go through those things. So what are, what are some things that you can do? What are you passionate about? What are you talented at? You know, it could be very helpful to examine your specific gifts, especially your spiritual gifts that God has given you. You know, he makes all of us different. You— I believe you can go read in Corinthians 12 or Romans 12. Corinthians deals with like the spiritual gifts, and Romans 12 deals with like how we're one body, many members. With all unique desires and talents and interests for a unique purpose. We all like— we just like— so I can't look at this person and say, oh man, wow, they're doing that, I need to be doing that too because they're so much like this, like that. No, no, no. What I need to go back and do is say, okay God, what are my gifts? Where do you want me operating? One body, many members. So the body can function, that's the way it needs to function. And so, especially in the body of Christ. And so what it comes down to it, that's two questions that we can ask ourselves: what are we passionate about and what are we talented at? Listen, the reason why that's so important is because you have a lot of people out there that's passionate about what they're not good at, but you also have people that are talented about something that they're not passionate about, that they don't really care about. So it's like me, okay, saying, man, I just want to make a lot of money. So I become real good at it, but I'm not passionate about it. And so, or it's like, okay, it's something that I'm real good at. Like, let's just say, because I had a skill set to just be a, like, a professional— I mean, no, I'm not, because I'm definitely gonna be playing professional baseball. But let's say it's like I was a singer, and Lord knows he He skipped me with that. But let's just say, if I could really sing but I didn't have no passion about it just because everybody wanted me to do it, like, eventually I'm not going to be good at it. So it's like John C. Maxwell said, therefore it's not either or, it's both and. Both and, not either or. So what are you passionate about and what are you talented at? Start writing those down and looking for those intersections. And I believe I kind of hinted at that in the first episode that I did as well. So one of the last things that you can do is that it can be very helpful to talk to people that know us well. Like, talk to people that know you well. Like, you know, the Bible talks about, and especially a lot of Proverbs, about wise counselor. So get around wise people, you know, that can basically serve. You know, you can go to like a biblical counselor or a career coach or a career counselor, career develop whatever it may be, and, and then talk to a collective of them, and then like talk to some more people that's close to you and just start doing the due diligence. This is your career. A lot of times we just pick what we see. Oh, I seen that, I just— all I've seen. And God has so much more in you, and you might come back to that, but at the end of the day, you want to draw out and stir up what he's putting in you and bring that out and bring it to fruition through his grace and his mercy. So this can be very insightful, like it could be helpful insight that people, you know, it's just talking to people and putting yourself around wise counseling. And then one of the other things is that it might be very helpful or beneficial, whatever terminology you want to use, to talk to people or interview people in a basically potential career field that you might be, you know, looking at. So for example, if you want to be a nurse Go talk to some nurses, sit down with them and just talk to a collective of them because you're going to get so many different experience. Oftentimes we talk to one or two people and it's like, oh no, I don't want to do that because they said this, where you might have picked two bad ones. So set up a thing, so I'm gonna talk to maybe like 10, you know, you might like 10, but once again, this is your career. Do the due diligence, do it. We have to learn how to dig deep. So start interviewing different people. You have, you know, yes, you have social media platforms, but you have also like a professional like type of social media thing. So yeah, you can hit them up on Facebook, ask them for coffee, Instagram, you know, whatever, TikTok, Snapchat, whatever's out there. But a lot of that stuff also can be done by LinkedIn. And if someone doesn't respond, so what? It's cool. Like, move on to the next. But just pray and ask God to, you know, just help guide you. Another option is volunteering. We don't like to do that anymore, you know, unpaid internships are kind of frowned upon now, but I believe that's one of the best ways to really get in the game. Because John C— uh, no, Jim, Jim Rohn said it best: be willing to do more than what you pay for because eventually you'll be paid for more than what you do. So volunteer in the field, that you feel that God is calling you to or you're drawn to. That will help in helping you put forth the necessary things that, you know, what— that will help put forth the necessary things that you need to help you pick a career, to decide, okay, this is the career choice, this is where I want to go into. And then two of the questions that you can ask as you come out of that investigation there is that, where do I want to be? Who do I need to know? Where do I want to be? Who do I need to know? Or you can ask these questions kind of at the beginning of, you know, before looking for the wise counseling and talking to people that you know. But a lot of times, like I said, you want to basically have an idea, okay, I've done all of this homework, I've done my due diligence, okay, where do I want to be now and who do I need to know? So you might be going back to some of those same people that you just kind of had that initial conversation with, saying, you know, I've been just kind of searching. This is what I want to do. This, this is where I want to be. So can you help me know more people like you and do it the way you do it? Or, you know, just in the field of study or the field of practice, I may say. And so when it comes to picking a career, like I say, you have purpose in it. Christians, people of faith Listen, it's many different careers out there that honor God, probably with the exception of very few. And you know, you like prostitution, pornography, you know, selling your sex and stuff like that, there— those I would see as dishonoring to God. But most things, in all honesty, if it doesn't require sin in this performance, and basically what you're called to do, I truly believe that that work can be done to glorify God. I truly believe it in my heart. And so therefore, like, just pray. As a recap, pray, understand, and do the due diligence to find out the gifts that you have. Understand the multifacets of life. Who you need to know— I mean, I'm sorry, where you want to be and who you need to know— and then pray again. And I'm telling you, God will help navigate you and direct you into picking a career that he has called you to. Hey, so I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to this content today. If it has impacted you in any kind of way, I want to encourage you to share it on your social media feed with family and friends. And if you desire to connect with me on a more deeper level, go to www.timothyprattjr.org where you'll get more information on how to do that. With that being said, continue to have a blessed day. The Lord's will, I'll see you next time.