If Every Job Has to Fulfill You, You'll Never Start | Mark 2:23-24
The Way to Trust | Scene 4, Day 3 | Mark 2:23-24
One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain.
The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
Mark 2:23–24
“I just don’t know what I am supposed to do with my life,” she said.
My daughter sat across from me at the kitchen table, scrolling through job listings on her laptop. She had been at it for months—applying, interviewing, waiting. Nothing had clicked.
I heard the weight in her voice. I thought of the stat about the small percentage of people actually working in the field of their college degree. She was about to achieve the degree, but the future path was still uncertain. Her face told the story of someone trying to make decisions that feel permanent when you’re only twenty-three years old.
I’d been there. I remembered the pressure, the expectation that you’re supposed to make one massive, fateful choice about your future path. Choose wrong, and you’ve wasted years.
I said, “Sometimes you just need a job. Not because it has to be your calling, but because working helps you figure out what matters.
“You learn more by doing than by waiting for lightning.”
She nodded, but I could see the tension. We live in a culture that tells young people to pick your identity and “follow your passion.” It sounds inspiring. But for many, it creates paralysis: the idea that somewhere out there is The One Straight and True Path for you, and your job is to find it.
If every job has to fulfill your soul, how do you ever start?
But what if it works differently?
What if knowing your “why” doesn’t mean every “what” has to be The One?
What if the idea that we’re supposed to pick The One Big Why is misguided?
What if it means starting with what ultimately matters—Jesus—so you can make wise decisions about everything else, including taking a job that just pays the bills?
As we continue, we find the Pharisees once again questioning Jesus. He was fine in chapter one, just helping people. But ever since chapter two started, they’ve been on his case. First about forgiving sins, then about eating with tax collectors, and now about picking grain on the Sabbath.
I swear, it’s like they’re stalking him.
(Thank you, thank you very much… I’ll let myself out now.)
This time, they’re bothered by Jesus’ casual attitude: by picking grains from the stalks, the disciples appeared to be working on the Sabbath, which was breaking the rules.
But this raises a bigger question: why do the rules exist, anyway?
Chuck Colson understood the shift from Whats to Why. Nixon’s former “hatchet man”, the doer of dirty work who was convicted in the Watergate scandal, experienced a midlife conversion that changed his entire life trajectory. In prison, Colson discovered that Jesus transforms how you see everything. He called it developing a Christian “worldview.”
Colson didn’t romanticize his fall from power. He simply discovered that prior to Watergate, his life had been a series of Whats with no higher purpose than simply increasing his own security. But when Jesus is your Why, even the hardest Whats can become meaningful.
After his release, Colson spent the rest of his life serving prisoners through Prison Fellowship. Not because he finally discovered that prison was his One Life Passion, but because Jesus became his Why, and that Why made sense of the Whats of his life.
That’s what I wanted my daughter to hear: focus on Jesus first, not the Whats.
The comedian Michael Jr. tells a story of the time he invited a music teacher to sing in front of a live audience. The teacher responded with a beautiful, pensive version of “Amazing Grace.”
Then Michael Jr. asked him to sing it again—but this time as if his uncle had just gotten out of jail after being shot. “Do the hood version,” he said.
The musician sang again, but this time his soulful rendition brought the house down. Michael Jr. observed, “The first time I asked him to sing, he knew what he was doing. The second time, he knew why he was doing it. When you know your why, your what has more impact because you’re walking in or toward your purpose.”
He adds, “If you know your why, you have options for what your what can be.”
It’s really a question of what you’re going to pick—or rather, choose.
Instagram theology suggests you pick the One Path, like this:
Passion → Dream job → Success
But that’s not what Jesus teaches. That’s still outside-in thinking—using your job to give you purpose. It’s instrumental faith or using Jesus as a tool to find your Why and achieve what you want. Substantial faith starts inside-out, differently, like this:
Jesus is your Why → Jesus reframes your gifts →
You learn to trust that with Jesus, your future will be meaningful
Instagram theology says your job must fulfill you, or that you have One Straight Path to find and stay on. It works outside-in: find the right job (What), and you’ll find purpose (Why).
Jesus works inside-out. He fulfills you, so your job doesn’t have to carry that weight. Start with Him as your Why and then let him show you what to do and how your work can become meaningful.
Which means that sometimes, there is more than one What to choose from!
If you stay close to Jesus, He becomes your Why. And in that closeness, something happens—you begin to understand your gifts better. The gifts God has given you become clearer.
When you understand your gifts, opportunities emerge. You might find greater satisfaction in your current work because your heart has been transformed. Or you might discover new work that aligns with the gifts Jesus is helping you see.
Either outcome is good. The difference is that Jesus is at the heart of it, whether you stay or whether you go.
Instagram theology creates paralysis: “I can’t take this job unless it’s my calling.”
Jesus creates freedom: “I can take this job because who I am and what I do are both secure in Christ.”
The Pharisees may have liked Instagram, because they had it backwards, too. They were working outside-in: follow the right rules (What), and you’ll get to God (Why). Jesus flips it inside-out: start with God (Why), and then the rules make sense (What).
Consider the story of Levi, who we met in the previous scene.
Levi and Chuck Colson aren’t that far apart! Jesus calls Levi, the tax collector. Jesus sees Levi’s gifts. He sees his capacity, not just his past. He says, “Follow me.” Levi agrees. Over time, his work changes, but more importantly, his identity changes.
My daughter is still figuring out her path. So am I. I tell her we are both learning what we want to pick and choose when we grow up. But here’s what I’m learning: when Jesus is your Why, you can work any job and still have purpose, because your worth isn’t in your What. It’s in the One who is your Why.
Maybe you’re in the same place. The problem might not be the job at all. It might be trying to find life in the What instead of the Why.
Religion’s rules won’t give you life.
Society’s expectations won’t give you life.
Even following your passion won’t give you life.
The only way that gives life is Jesus. When you pick Jesus, He becomes your Why. Then the Whats—your job, your choices, your daily routines—start to make sense.
Pray
Lord, give me the courage to know my Why. Help me not to live a life of going through the motions, adhering to a set of rules given to me by another, or chasing a dream that can’t fulfill me. Instead, fill me with your presence and purpose, and show me how to live a life of meaning. Amen.