When Your Career Becomes Your Identity
We live in a culture today where value is tied too heavily to occupation and career. In reality, and particularly through a Christian worldview, we should be weighing the value of others beyond their occupation.
When my husband and I moved across state lines for my residency training, my husband left behind a ten-year career in law enforcement. He had been excellent at it, too—initially planning on a full three-decade profession. After our move, however, several factors led my husband to step away from this occupation. This career transition allowed us to re-evaluate our goals for our future careers, but also for our personal lives. Ultimately, it opened our eyes to something common for most modern Americans—that our careers had become much of our identities.
A Modern Conundrum
In his book “Every Good Endeavor,” late pastor and theologian Timothy Keller wrote that while one’s identity in prior generations was based on your family, home-town, or association with a church or club, “today young people are seeking to define themselves by the status of their work.”One 2014 Gallup poll states that 55 percent of US workers get a sense of identity from their job, results that have been consistent since 1989.This claim is even more true for individuals with higher education—with nearly seventy percent of college graduates reporting a sense of identity from their jobs.
If you are wondering whether your work may be becoming an idol for you, here are some questions you can ask yourself:
- Are all of my goals tied to my career?
- Am I sacrificing time with friends or family to pursue professional achievements?
- Do I only know how to describe myself based on my occupation?
- Do I have difficulty relating to others outside of my job or imagining my life without my work?
Where does your Identity Stand?
Work in and of itself is a holy thing. It is what we were created to do—particularly because we were created within God’s image—a God who also worked when He set the world into motion. Genesis 1, and later Psalm 104, are reflections of God’s intimate work in building and sustaining His creation and creatures.
O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. — Psalm 104:24–25
Our own labors, then, are a reflection of God’s divine image, as Keller explains, “work has dignity because it is something that God does and because we do it in God’s place, as his representatives.”
Dorothy Sayers, a 20th century author, confirmed this when she wrote that “…man, made in God’s image should make things as God makes them, for the sake of doing well a thing that is well worth doing.”
The error comes when we use work for our own achievement and glorification. Sayers argues that we should find satisfaction in work merely for a job well done—for the “fulfillment of his own nature” in that we are created to work.
Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper, spoke frequently to this talking point as well. In his lectures on Calvinism he stated that “…whatever [man] may apply his hand, in agriculture, in commerce, and in industry, or his mind, in the world of art, and science…above all, he has to aim at the glory of his God.”
And yet, in our modern mindset, we have shifted our view of work to prioritize productivity over the glory of God. It is when we work to glorify ourselves in this way that work can easily become our identity and idol. Our lives should be founded in our relationship with God so that the other components of our lives—career, family, friendships, hobbies, and pleasure—don’t become more important than our Savior who created them.
Assurance in Christ
While we all long for significance and to be validated in our labors and achievements, as believers we should be grounded first and foremost in our identity in Christ. It is important that we order our relationships, desires, and vocations appropriately because while “work matters to God…it makes a poor God-substitute.”
We weren’t made in the image of things that pass away—salaries, careers, achievements. And what a comfort that is, because we would be left empty and unfulfilled at the slightest loss of them. But we were created in the image of the eternal God who does not pass away. Furthermore, the gospel—the good news that we are redeemed in Christ’s death and resurrection—reassures us that we do not have to try to prove ourselves through our own efforts (i.e. careers), but that we are already justified and saved by Him. The greatest work has already been done. While we are called to take pride in our work for the glory of God, we should be assured that our identity stands in someone far greater—Christ!
Footnotes
Timothy Keller and Katherine Leary Alsdorf. Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work (New York, NY: Dutton, 2012), 103.
Rebecca Riffkin, “In U.S., 55% of Workers Get Sense of Identity from Their Job.” Gallup.Com, Gallup, 22 Aug. 2014, news.gallup.com/poll/175400/workers-sense-identity-job.aspx.
Timothy Keller and Katherine Leary Alsdorf, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work (New York, NY: Dutton, 2012), 36.
Sayers, Dorothy. Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2004), 117.
Sayers, Dorothy. Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2004), 127.
Abraham Kuyper, “Lectures on Calvinism” (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1943).
Darling, Daniel. “Your Work Matters. But Don’t Deify It.” The Gospel Coalition. 27 September 2018. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/your-work-matters-dont-deify-it/
