The Young Christian's Career Guide

It is really important that we know what defines us and gives us our identities. Especially as young professional people, we need to be careful not to have our identities stolen because we are trying to fit into this mould, wanting to be accepted by everyone in the workplace. For us to be able to bring radical change into our professions, we cannot and should not fit into someone else’s mould. That just makes us replicas, and replicas are never worth much because they are a dime a dozen. Some of the greatest people on this earth are people who refused to fit into a mould of someone else’s creation.

Unfortunately, it is so easy to confine yourself and fit into a mould, especially at work. You want to fit in and please your colleagues so that people don’t say negative things about you. In certain situations, you even try your hardest to not voice that good idea you have so you don’t sound stupid. Even in that silence you are trying not to break out of the mould. The reason that people like Bill Gates became so successful is because they refused to conform to the normal way of doing things. They refused to be confined by someone else’s container. I am sure when Bill Gates dropped out of university it must have seemed like the dumbest idea in the world to a lot of people around him. His future at that point was so uncertain but he did not let that stop him from following the path he wanted to pave for himself. Everyone’s path is different and you have to figure out yours for yourself. The Bible tells us that God has called us by name. He has called you to be who you are and for Him to use you as you are. As we go about interacting with other people and seeing what they are doing in their lives, it is so easy to try and copy what they are doing or try to follow the same route because it looks as if it is working for them. It is important to realise that if you are trying to follow what someone else is doing, you are not going to get very far because you are applying someone else’s plan to your life when you don’t know what their end game is. You are seeing only a page out of an entire book and trying to apply that page to your whole life. Surely that is a recipe for disaster!

There is no one else in this world who is ever going to be you and who is going to do what you can do or have the anointing to do what God has called you to do.

You must be a young Christian professional who has an identity. When people look at you they must be able to know what sets you apart and be able to describe you by that. One Sunday at church, as the pastor told us to greet one or two people (as is the custom every Sunday), I had a lady refer to me as Rachel’s friend. She did not ask me what my name was; she just linked my identity to somebody else’s. As innocent as that was, it really bothered me because to her I was just Rachel’s friend. I thought: although I appreciate you linking me to my friend Rachel, that is not who I am. I have my own identity and I would love for you to get to know me as a completely separate individual. In the Bible we read that David was a man who was after God’s own heart to the extent that, when we want to describe David, that is what comes to mind. In the Bible there are so many mighty men of God and as we read about them we come to identify them separately because, although they were powerful men of God, they had very different strengths and weaknesses that set them apart. Nowhere do you read a description that says Solomon who was like David but not David. Why do you want to be known as being similar to somebody else whom you are not?

If you are a rose then be a rose and learn how to be the best rose that you can be. If you are a lily then be the best lily. The truth is, not everybody likes roses and not everybody likes lilies. For their weddings some people want to go with roses and other people want to go with lilies. The point is, you have a specific calling that you have been put on this earth for. You have been called to function for a specific purpose and to cater for a specific niche.

Being the person that you are allows you to be used in the area in which you are meant to be functioning. If everyone became roses, then what would happen to those people who are looking for lilies? I hope through this illustration you realise that by trying to change your identity and becoming somebody else you could be robbing other people of the opportunity to be brought into the Kingdom of God, because they would have been able to relate to the real you and not the copy of somebody else that you are trying to be.