In this inaugural episode of the Vocatio podcast, Steve and Nicole Whitacre discuss Christian calling for college students. There are headwinds facing us as we think about calling, both at Christmas and in a culture that is opposed to the Christian faith. C. S. Lewis can help! Come join the conversation.
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TRANSCRIPT
Steve 00:00
Welcome to Vocatio, where we talk about Christian calling for college students. My name is Steve Whitacre. I’m the president of Trinity College, one of the pastors at Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville. And this is the lovely Mrs. Whitacre, my wife, Nicole. We talk a lot about Christian calling for college students and our children: we have three college students and one high school student. We have our students at Trinity College, you lead Trinitas Classical Academy. So we have a lot of students and we encourage and exhort our students to think about their Christian callings. They have callings on their lives, and some of those callings are yet to be realized. They’re out in the future, callings to be husbands and fathers, callings to be wives and mothers, workers, church members, neighbors, family members, all those things, they have these callings. And we want to help them recognize what those callings are, discern what they are, and learn how to live in the good of those and we thought it would be a good idea to record some conversations that we have in hopes of serving young people who are thinking about their callings, and to help them think about their callings. So we have these conversations a lot. Maybe you could begin. We could begin by you talking a little bit about a conversation we had recently with one of our children.
Nicole 01:24
Yeah, well, this is something we’ve been talking to our children about for a number of years, probably since our oldest son, Jack, started high school. We started taking maybe half a day each every six months or so, and taking time with each of our children to have a kind of planning time, to kind of talk to them about where they were at, what they felt like God was doing in their lives, where they thought they needed to grow, just kind of helping them to think about their the callings of God on their lives at present, and how they could glorify Him in their lives, taking a step back and looking at that so that we did that for a number of years with them, and then now that our son, Jack, has been away at college for the last couple of years, every time he comes home on break, he wants to have one of these conversations with us. So he’s taken to calling them “State of the Student.” And so we just the other day, drove him to the airport to go back for the last three weeks of his semester and he wanted to have another state of the student. And this pretty much amounts to Jack asking us great questions about maybe tasks he has to complete things going on in his life, challenges he’s facing ways he’s wanting to discover how God wants him to please Him and live right now. It’s a conversation that can be very wide ranging, but essentially what it comes down to is, where is God at work in his life, really wanting to encourage him. Where is God at work? Where do we see the Holy Spirit active and present helping him to be more like His Son? And then also, what does God have for him to do right now? What is the work that God has for him to do? What is God’s calling on his life at present, even just for the next three weeks before Christmas break. So this is the kind of conversation we wanted to extend and share with the rest of you, because they’ve been so encouraging as we’ve as we’ve talked to Jack.
Steve 03:35
Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly right. And I love that. I love that we can talk about this for a couple of reasons I love it because I think that as we interact with individual students, we see a real need for the category of vocation, and it really serves people to understand what calling is and how It works when we think broadly about our culture and the world that young people today are growing up in. There are, there are a lot of, a lot of issues that the category of calling helps to address, to speak to and to bring comfort and a sense of peace. And tell us we like that word. Tell us if, if our if our audience is not familiar with this word. That’s It’s a Greek term that means the end, what’s the goal or the outcome, or where is this thing headed? So as I’ve had the privilege of traveling around a lot for Trinity College, I visited a lot of sovereign grace churches and talked with a lot of students and pastors and parents, and I like I share a lot of the deep concerns that a lot of Christian leaders in our day have about the culture that we live in, but I also look at the world that we’re in, and I think there’s an element of this that’s very exciting, because as the. World descends deeper into chaos and darkness that creates opportunity for Christians. And I think among the students that I interact with and the students that we have, you know, there’s some students who they are. They’re basically first generation Christians. They maybe their parents were, are not Christians. They didn’t grow up going to church. And so for them, the gospel and all its implications, everything it means for all of life, it’s like a whole new thing. And that’s super exciting, because they are discovering, like for the first time, in their family, in their in their their heritage, what this means, and they have an opportunity now to begin something that didn’t exist in their family or maybe in their their circles before. But I also, especially as I’ve traveled around to other sovereign grace churches, and here at our church, at Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville, I also see that there are young people who grew up with really godly parents, really godly grandparents, and they have received this real deep legacy of Christian faithfulness. Their parents were striving to raise them on Christian principles, taught them the Bible, explained to them the gospel helped them see how that works out in every area of life. And so some, some young people that we interact with are, they are poised, I think, to take this idea of calling, to fulfill their calling, and live that out in even deeper and further and broader ways than than their parents or grandparents did before them. And I think that’s so exciting, because that’s part of how God designed it to work, that each successive generation would stand on the shoulders of the generations before them, would go further, would see more, would apply it deeper. So I’m really excited for this next generation to grab hold of their callings and live that out. So I know you agree with that, but you have insight in that as well. What do you see in that?
Nicole 07:00
Yeah, I haven’t been traveling like you have as extensively, but I experience that every day in the classroom, I interact with students, and I see such grace on their lives. I see the the outworking of all of their parents, investment in them, training them, teaching them to obey, teaching them to love God’s word, teaching them what the gospel is, what it means, how, how it is, worked out in their daily lives. And so it’s really exciting, from my vantage point, to get to interact with these young people. My it reminds me often of what my mom used to tell my sisters and me when we were younger, probably about this age at high school college, she would just remind us of the verse in Luke where it talks about to whom much has been entrusted, much more will be expected to much has been entrusted, much More will be expected. And it’s a really challenging verse, and I think it’s a real challenge for this generation. I think much has been given to them, much has been entrusted to them. I just know so many parents who have labored so faithfully to raise their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord today long to do, to see their children fulfill their callings and please the Lord. And that is evident in the lives of these students that we interact with every day. And so I think part of what we want to do here is help them to feel in a good way that the burden of that that God has given them much, and he’s given them much because he wants to use them. It’s also really exciting. There’s a fair calling on their lives to be used by God in their generation. And it’s a generation that really needs the gospel, the generation of young people that is coming up right now, they have experienced a lot of chaos and upheaval. That’s true. And that’s so true these young people who have been raised in in godly homes, who have who have repented from their sins and put their trust in Christ, there’s just, there’s a unique calling on their lives to to spread the gospel to their generation. And it’s exciting to see that that coming out and starting to come to fruition, even though they haven’t graduated from high school or from college yet. But I think that in in the New Testament, we see in particular the outworking of this in Titus two, Paul is instructing Titus on what the different groups in the church need to be doing. And in particular, He’s instructing the younger women to learn from the older women a number of godly qualities so that the word of God would not be reviled, so that we can adorn the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so I think this is. Kind of one of the reasons that we want to have these conversations is not only to talk about calling in general for all young people, but to talk about biblical manhood and womanhood, how this works out for young men and for young women in in fulfilling the callings that God has on their lives.
Steve 10:17
Yeah, I think that’s really great. And those are some headings there that more than we can get into today, but we’re gonna have some future conversations about about biblical manhood and womanhood, about calling to the world, how to serve and spread the gospel. Serve our neighbors by spreading the gospel, how to think about about work, and whether that’s school work or getting a job or whatever else. Okay? But I think there’s at least two challenges for us here, two headwinds, right? We could, I think we could think of this as it’s it’s some friction that that we’re going to experience in raising this conversation now. One of them is, is this the best time of year for us to start this conversation? It’s like, here’s a Christmas tree. There’s a lot going on. People, people have, they have parties. They have presents to buy and wrap. There are cheesy Christmas movies that you’ve already seen 37 times that we need to go watch. And how are we going to get people’s attention on this right now? How to get them to think about this? The other, the other problem, I think, that we have is, is a problem that we would have any time of year, which is that I think many young people think of their Christian calling as something out there in the future. It’s something I can’t wait to get to, but I’ve got to get through this thing first. I’ve got to, I got to get through school. And it’s, you know, it’s kind of a drag or drudgery. It’s what you got to do to get to what it is you want to do, or what you hope to do your career, whatever it is, you know, marriage. So let’s talk about those headwinds a little bit. Two headwinds, the headwind of holiday and the headwind of the futurity of callings that people See.
Nicole 11:59
Well, I think again, like you said, the holidays are actually an opportunity. Instead of being I think when I was a student, I remember thinking the whole world is celebrating and putting all these distractions in front of us, and yet they’re expecting us students to focus on finals. Right now. This is not fair, right? Everybody’s partying, everybody’s okay. We’re winding down, and students are facing some of the most challenging weeks of the year right around the holiday season, and I remember complaining about that a little bit, but since my mom and I were studying Ecclesiastes a couple years ago, I came to realize that actually this this holiday season, this Advent season, it’s kind of just a heightened time of what real life is, how life is supposed to be lived. Ecclesiastes says there is nothing better than to enjoy your food and your drink and your toil, because this is from the hand of God. And so what is the holiday season? It’s lots of food and drink and toil. It’s lots of food and drink and work, lots of feasting and lots of effort. So I think that for students, I really want my children and my students, to view the holiday time as to view the Advent season, a chance to to grow in, in living each day and receiving each day as a gift from God, that this is an opportunity to wake up in The morning and say, Okay, I want to rejoice today. I want to enjoy. There’s nothing better than for me to enjoy, not just the fun things we get to do today, not just the feasting, not just the party that I get to attend this weekend, this Christmas party, whatever, but to actually enjoy your work, to remember that your study the opportunity to study God’s Word and world is a gift from him, and it’s something to be enjoyed. It’s a privilege. It’s from God’s hand. So viewing each day, I think that sometimes and this kind of gets into your other headwinds.
Steve 14:22
I think the other, the other piece of that, I think what you’re describing is right on and I think the the important part of that for students is that that’s a perspective that helps them to finish well, right? I think one of the hardest things for students is to finish well, whether that’s finished a semester Well, or finish an entire course of study. Well, I mean, we talk about senioritis, but there’s holiday-itis, too, and semester-itis, I don’t know, yeah, students begin semester strong, and they’re like, excited about a new topic, they’ve got a new notebook, we’ve got the calendar, all things great, and they dig in. And a week or two goes by and it’s like, now we’re just back to the grind. And by the end of the semester, students. You’re just panting like, get me over the finish line. Yeah. And so I think that this, what you’re describing, is, is really helpful in terms of helping students finish well, because if you see this as your calling, God has called you not just to endure the semester, not just to sweat it out, and not just to claw your way over the finish line or or not, just to be diverted into all the Christmas movies and shopping and and tweaking your your Christmas playlist and Apple music or whatever else it’s this is a time God has given you this to do. So do it really well. And then then that actually, that makes Christmas so much more enjoyable, right? Makes the holiday because you you finish your labor and you have rest from your labor. And that’s exactly, it’s a reflection of how God designed it. It’s exactly what you see in Genesis chapter one. Six days God created the world, he did the work, and then when his work was complete, on the seventh day, he rested. And so to finish well, and then come to the other side to really, to really work, and then to really rest and feast and enjoy the holiday. That’s how God designed it to work. And students will actually find way more satisfaction in that if they press and learn the discipline of of working hard, if they see it as part of their calling. Now, okay, so what about this other headwind? Then let’s talk about that, this idea that, well, calling is out there in the future. I’ve got to endure this thing for now and then one day I’ll do the thing that I want to do, the calling that I hope to have, right?
Nicole 16:33
Yeah, I think that can be a real demotivator, a real drag on a student’s energy, effort, excitement for what God has called them to today. And we see this a lot. We tend to view life as something we’re always trying to get out there in the future. So I’m trying to get a degree, I’m trying to get good grades. I’m trying to get married. I’m trying to get home. All these things that were were review the life that we’re living right now as just the the means of getting those things. And again, referring back to Ecclesiastes, I think David Gibson, uh, puts it really well. He says, life is gift not gain, and life is gift not get. It’s not about what you’re trying to get out there in the future. It’s actually a gift from God to be lived today. And this, I think it’s Derek Kidder said, this is the kind of comfort that that energizes, right? This is the kind of realization that doesn’t cause us to just be like, okay, life’s a gift. I’m just gonna sit back on the lazy river and kind of float through the holiday season. It’s a gift that we’re to do something with. It’s a gift, it’s a comfort, it’s an encouragement that we’re to actually take and hold on to. Elizabeth Elliot, I love her perspective on this. When she was alive, she wrote a lot about life and our daily duties and how they are meant to be lived before God. And she says, This job has been given me to do. So this job of schoolwork has been given to students to do. Therefore, it is a gift, therefore it is a privilege, it is an offering I may make to God. It is to be done gladly. If it is to be done for him, that’s great. So I think that headwind of thinking this is always out in the future, today is the day that you’re supposed to be glorifying the Lord, He has given you today as a gift and to receive it gladly and say, Okay, how can I glorify God today with my studies and not always be thinking about what I’m trying to get? Yeah?
Steve 18:51
Yeah. I think that’s exactly right. I think that there’s a I think that there’s also a temptation for students as they think about, if they think about calling as some future thing. It’s something I’m trying to get to. Part of the reason I think some students think of calling out there in the future is because they they understand it very subjectively and with a lot of self orientation. This is something I want to, I want to come back to, and we’ll have a longer conversation about another time. But I think many students, when they think, yeah, I think I’m called to, you know, be a physical therapist, or, you know, be an accountant, or whatever. What they’re really saying, and that is, this is what I want to do. And there’s not a lot of reference in it. I don’t hear often, a lot of reference in it to to God and to what, how do you discern what is God’s will for your life and that. So these are these. There’s a lot to talk about here, because we can get into guidance, and how do you Christian decision making and those kind of things. But what I’m getting at is one of the ways to combat this headwind, and one of the ways I think students can bring their sense of calling into the present is to see this as as something that comes from outside of you. It’s something God has called you to. It’s not just an internal. Sense of, ah, this is what I want to do, or I don’t like the feeling of having to work so hard at school right now, so that must not be my calling because I don’t like it. Well, no, no, that actually that difficulty and that challenge that it is that actually might very well be be exactly because it is your calling. God has appointed you to this hard thing, because he’s using it to shape and to mold and to to create in you the kind of character and perseverance that he wants you to have. Yeah, so I’ve got a I’ve got a quotation from CS Lewis that I think might might help here. So CS Lewis, as you know, wrote a well, it was a lecture. It was an address that he gave at St Mary, the virgin church in Oxford on october 22 1939 right? So the setting here is really important, because World War Two began September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. So what is? What six, seven weeks after the beginning of World War Two, England is mobilizing for war. Its young men are getting trained and being shipped out to continental Europe to fight the Germans. And here is CS Lewis at Oxford giving an address to students, and the address is called learning in wartime, or at least that’s how it’s come down to us. Now in this book, it’s titled learning in wartime. It’s the second address in the weight of glory, and this is gold. There’s a ton of really great quotes in here, but right on this topic, I think it’s really relevant, because he the whole address. He talks about how important it is, even at at seemingly inconvenient moments, to give ourselves to the calling that God has given us and this is it. Yes, yeah. So here’s the quote I’m thinking of he says, there are always plenty of rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come. And then skipping down a little bit more, he says, a more Christian attitude, which can be attained at any age is that of leaving futurity in God’s hands. Oh, man, I could keep going. There’s so like, I could just read this essay too to everyone right now. So let’s just maybe we can wrap up with this. I think this idea of learning in wartime, and even though there’s not a world war on right now, right now, in some ways, some people might look at this and think this is not the most convenient time for me to give myself to study, either not the most convenient time the holidays or with everything going on in the world right now. Should I be giving myself to studying? Should i Is there something else I should be doing. It’s what difference is this gonna make? So, yeah, how do you speak to students about that? Right?
Nicole 23:26
I think, yeah, I love what he says about how this can be learned at any age. And I think it’s really important that young people learn this now. This is the time to learn it. I think one of the things we need to not be so surprised by is that this is going to be hard. This is going to be difficult, and we tend to be very thrown off guard by that, like, Oh no, this is so hard. It must mean that it’s not the right thing to do. It would be so much easier to just maybe I should just quit school, go get a job. Maybe I should just pass finals, but not really give it my all. Let me just focus my attention on these, these other things that are going on. So again, the distractions are, are many, but I think understanding that no God has given me a duty right now, if you just wake up in the morning and say, Lord, what? What is my duty today? What are you calling me to do today? That’s not a really confusing question. There’s there’s an answer for that, and we pretty much know. What has God called me to do? He’s called me to seek Him through His Word. He’s called me to be faithful and diligent at what he’s given me to do today, which is my schoolwork. He’s called me to love others, to stop thinking about myself and to think about others, and to and to love others and to care for others today, it’s really simple. It simplifies things, and it also brings so much more joy, I think, not just always thinking about the future, but just thinking about today. Today is all we have. Yeah. Okay, the past is gone and the future is in the Lord’s hands. We have today. He has given us today. And so just encouraging students, not only at this time in your life, but at this holiday season, to just to live today before the Lord, right, and to honor him, yeah,
Steve 25:18
I think that’s a great way to wrap up, because, you know, one of my favorite verses, Psalm 37 three, trust in the Lord and do good. So what am I called to do today? Well, I think I could take everything that I’m facing this day, and I could just make two columns in my planner. Trust in the Lord do good. How am I called to faith? How am I called to obedience? And let me go do those things. Let me trust God for the things that are outside of my control, and let me do the things that God has entrusted to me to do for today, that can feel hard, that can feel difficult and overwhelming, but the Lord remembers our frame. He knows but we that we are but dust, and he will not give us more than we can bear. And so one of the verses I pray gosh, probably almost every day. And I remind you of often I give to our children. Often, Psalm 6819, Blessed be the Lord who daily bears us up. God is our salvation. And if this sense of calling is overwhelming for some young people and they think, how do I how am I going to figure this out? How am I going to discover my calling? How am I going to find my way in this? I want to say to those young people, God will daily bear you up. God will lead you into the goodness of this one day at a time. And we’re going to come back to Conversations on all the mechanics of how to discover God’s callings for your life, how to discern the will of God and make a good decision, and things like that. We have a lot more to talk about, but this is a good verse to end on, Psalm 6819, so for the young people watching this or listening to this, I would want them to know this, Blessed be the Lord who daily bears us up. God is our salvation. So that’s probably a good place for us to stop. That’s enough for today. Thank you for joining us for vocadio, where we have conversations about Christian calling for college students. We hope you’ll come back and listen to more or watch more with us. This has been brought to you by Trinity College of Lowell. If you’d like to learn more about Trinity College, visit our website, Trinity College lou.com you can find out more about what it means that we shape young men and young women for Christ and for the church. Until next time. Keep growing.