God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life (Redesign) (Focal Point)

God at Work is a great exposition, very accessible to the general Christian reader, simply on work, or more specifically all the various ways that Christians are called to work in their lives. This is about the doctrine of calling, which perhaps, is initially understood by many as calling by God to exclusive spiritual work, like preaching or some other direct type of church ministry.Gene Veith is an academic dean at Patrick Henry College, and a frequent writer on the importance of Christians seeing all of life under the Lord of all. He is a Lutheran, and as a result spends much of this relatively short text (about 200 pgs) expounding on Martin Luther's writings on vocation, recontextualized for the 21st century. Part of the Reformation, which Luther helped to lead, was the near revolutionary approach to seeing the work of Christians outside of a sacred/ secular dichotomy, which is that some work was ministry, and other work was just ordinary drudgery. Not dividing work into a sacred and secular categories remains near constant struggle for many in the 21st century, and Veith aims to show how calling and purpose relate to anything that the Christian faithfully sets out to do.Veith states that the motivation for every Christian, in everything he is called to is to reflect the common call that Christ demands in following him. Vocation is a matter of service and love, in everything here. So the Veith insists that way to spiritually determine value in work is can it express service and love to others. In a sense, he sanctifies all sorts of occupations with this general understanding, so that even mundane work, or work that does not appear particularly spiritual can be called up and drawn into the realm of Christ by expressing it with love and service.Vocation in this book is not limited to ordinary work, but Veith shows how calling applies to family, citizenship and church relationships. In a strong sense, this book attempts to unite and integrate all of Christian theology into touch-points of a persons life, so that the recreating work of Christ can redeem a whole person, not just the outwardly spiritual side of an individual's life. In an era of individualism and outward separation from traditional connections, this book is a strong advocate for individuals demonstrating, through actions, that the Christian life is a whole life, one that integrates into all parts, not just a narrowly spiritual side.Veith, in his effort to point to and clarify Luther's revolutionary teaching on vocation, draws a bit too much on quoting people quoting Luther. Other than that, this is a fine book that would be of value for individual or group study, for workers looking for purpose and calling in their careers and those looking to integrate their theology in all of life.

This book really expanded how I view my faith. God doesn't necessarily call everyone into ministry. But we are still being used by God in many areas of our lives. God uses us in our families, work, church, community, ect. Every relationship we have is ordained by God as a way to serve and love our neighbor. Since his Spirit lives within us, we are always working for the Lord. This book will inspire, enlighten, and encourage you. I highly recommend it!

This book may be worth reading for you, especially, if you're struggling with your place of service for God and you're someone who is not theologically trained, for Veith skillfully takes Martin Luther's 16th century complex thoughts on vocation and clearly and succinctly gives them fresh vitality for the common person.There are a large number of books written on vocation and calling; see here to view some of them: https://klesia.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/a-bibliography-of-calling/With Veith, I too believe that the Reformation's concept of the priesthood of all believers "turned every kind of [godly] work into a sacred calling ... an occasion ... for exercising a holy service to God and to one's neighbor." As such, each person - whether a farmer, mother, husband, police officer, nurse, pastor, or a technician - has a particular vocation/calling from God, but also a particular life's context, that the LORD will use to bring his goodness to both his beloved child and others. How so? God brings good: * To us, when our work done in a fallen world of unrealistic demands, sinful people, or broken things becomes the location of God's sanctifying work of crucifying our old person and resurrecting the new one. * To others, when our vocations allow us to co-labor with him in bringing his goodness to the world around us. For example, the farmer, produce driver, and grocery store employee are all part of God bringing his goodness to a person's life. Similarly, a pilot and baggage clerk are also ... Further, and of equal importance, these callings allow us to build relationships with people that enable God to share his love to others, in both word or deed.As such, this book is similar to Os Guinness's book - The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life - and a newer, simpler, and much condensed version of Gustaf Wingren's Luther on Vocation. For those up to a more theologically rigorous treatment of the subject, try Gustaf Wingren's Luther on Vocation.My take away quotes:1. "Christians need to realize that the present is the moment in which we are called to be faithful. We can do nothing about the past. The future is wholly in God's hands. Now is what we have. The future-orientated obsession of today's culture pushes our attention and our good works to the future, to what we are going to do later ... This means that vocation is played out not just in extraordinary acts - the great things we will do for the Lord, the great success we envision in our career someday - but in the realm of the ordinary. Whatever we face in the often humdrum present - washing the dishes, buying groceries, going to work, driving the kids somewhere, hanging out with our friends - this is the realm into which we have been called and in which our faith bears fruit in love. We are to love our neighbors ... the relationships that we are in right now, and our vocation is for God to serve them through us." (59)2. "The promises of God's Word and the conviction that right now, where I am, I am in the station - the vocation - where God has placed me - those constitute the basis for confidence and certainty that God has assuredly placed me here and that He is faithful and that He, even though I cannot see Him, is at work in and through my life." (152)3. "All of life, all of vocation, is transfigured by faith or is darkened by its absence: this faith creates rest, satisfaction, and peace and dispels weariness. But where faith is lacking and man judges according to his own feelings, ideas, and perception, behold weariness arises ... faith gives an inner meaning to what would otherwise be experienced as meaningless." (153 - 154)4. "The doctrine of vocation ... is also a theology of ordinary life. Christians do not have to be called to the mission field or the ministry or the work of evangelism to serve God, though many are; nor does the Christian life necessarily involve some kind of constant mystical experience. Rather, the Christian life is to be lived in vocation, in the seemingly ordinary walks of life that take up nearly all the hours of our day. The Christian life is to be lived out in our family, our work, our community, and our church." (157)

Highly preferred, for all Christian, specially who are student to be a future Church ministry , This book explains many vocations and reasons with details, thanks to Jesus , for blessing us with blessed writers.

This book will help anyone understand their vocational calling of God and make sense of the confusion and ambiguity. It’s an easy quick read but very important for every believer.

An excellent perspective on all of life - work , family and society. One often limits his/her vocation to just the professional engagements and call it work. The author opens our eyes that playing with the kids in a park is as much "work" as sitting in a board room reviewing business plans. A must read to get a 360 degree view on work

Enjoyed this book very much. It's worth reading.

Veith blows the ordinary vocations of life out of the mundane and into the Divine. He proves God is at work when we are.