I’ve been reading The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. This evening I read this:

If he [Jesus] were to come today as he did then [working as a carpenter in Nazareth], he could carry out his mission through most any decent and useful occupation. He could be a clerk or accountant in a hardware store, a computer technician, or construction worker. He could run a housecleaning service or repair automobiles.

In other words, if he were to come today he could very well do what you do.

In other words, Jesus’ earthly occupation as a carpenter was His way of connecting with us at the intersection of our ordinary lives. He could have lived any life—He could have chosen something far more exalted in our human estimation. But He chose an ordinary family, and adopted an ordinary job in a small town in a country with little political status. This was not meant to confer some special status on Middle Eastern carpenters. It was meant to show that God accepts and blesses the most ordinary of human lives.

This leads to a profound conclusion. Willard finishes:

Our human life, it turns out, is not destroyed by God’s life but is fulfilled in it and in it alone.

In other words, what would happen if God Incarnate was born in a carpenter’s home? Would He turn His back on so lowly and earthly a life? No—He’d become a carpenter. And the same is true of any career. Assuming a job is not inherently immoral, it is exactly the kind of job God in human form would do. “Let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God.” 1 Corinthians 7:24.

There can be no doubt that some people are called to a special role in ministry. But, apart from such a calling, our job in following Jesus is to do what we already do, and to do it to the best of our ability, to the glory of God.

The essential lesson of contented industry in the necessary duties of life is yet to be learned by many of Christ’s followers. It requires more grace, more stern discipline of character, to work for God in the capacity of mechanic, merchant, lawyer, or farmer, carrying the precepts of Christianity into the ordinary business of life, than to labor as an acknowledged missionary in the open field. It requires a strong spiritual nerve to bring religion into the workshop and the business office, sanctifying the details of everyday life, and ordering every transaction according to the standard of God’s Word. But this is what the Lord requires.

Ellen White, God’s Amazing Grace, 301