Anyway, shortly afterwards, Uni ended and I had to get a job. So what next? To keep a healthy sense of perspective, my closest group of friends (most of them non-Christian) made a pact that we would all spend the next 20 years generating stories, then get together over a cigar (each) and a glass of cognac and compare notes.
Sadly I don’t think I’m winning – one of the group (a doctor) was in Sri Lanka when the Boxing Day tsunami hit, and he had to rip the bathroom door off his bungalow to drag out his fiancé and swim with her to safety. In case that wasn’t enough, they then set up a Red Cross outpost together. Another member of the group (an engineer) has been using materials including the burned out shells of tanks in Afghanistan to rebuild canal walls and weirs. I’m a lawyer, and hence not really good at doing anything useful, so I’ve been struggling by comparison. Even though those guys are not Christian, they have been doing great humanitarian work. The thing I wonder about is whether my stories and my decisions are going to look any different from theirs in 20 years time because I’m a Christian.
I spent a few years practicing criminal law (trying to get justice for people who really needed grace) and then took up my current post with the UN. The first change which struck me was that I was now working for the benefit of those who were in trouble through no fault of their own. That was a relief.
The second was that I had a pretty dramatic change in perceived status and actual income.
Working under a respected banner like the UN insignia is significant from a professional perspective, but from a personal point of view the status of work tends to get mixed in with pride and other less helpful things. After I started, I found myself wanting to give people business cards. (I’m talking checkout chicks, random people in the street, etc.) A prestigious job also attracts ambitious competition, and tends to cultivate a sense of superiority. You can’t admit your limitations or mistakes because it feels like there are a dozen people wanting to push you aside. The more important you let yourself believe your job is, the stronger the temptation is to find your sense of self-worth and identity in the job.
The gospel is a fantastic cold shower in that respect: not only am I such a lost cause that Jesus had to go to the cross for me, but actually there is nothing I can do for God in my job that he needs. I’ll just do it well because he asked me to.
Then there’s income. Needless to say, for anyone who may be heading out into the workforce for the first time, you probably won’t get paid much in your first couple of years, but your income will creep up. The challenge is to keep track of what happens to your standard of living. After a few years in the workforce, could you go back to living on the income you had in your first year?
