Vocations and Avocations.

We are blessed. Capitalism, fossil fuels, electricity, and other factors have combined to make ours the richest society in history.

We can survive working only eight hours a day, while some economies require much more. And that leaves room for hobbies, second jobs, and a variety of “diversions” to give your mind a restful break from the day job while you explore something completely different.

Most people do the 9-to-5, watch TV for a few hours, then go to bed and do it all over again. But if you have a little energy left after your vocation, try an avocation: do something constructive. Make something. Learn a craft. Read a book. Take lessons. Join a chess club. Rebuild a classic automobile. Work the farm. My father and his father and brother were dedicated hobbyists, raising cattle, building RC aircraft, practicing photography, building black powder rifles—you name it. And I have as many irons in the blacksmith’s fire as they did.

As college students, it’s the same for you. You have classes (grades!) and then you have diversions: baseball, art, working with children, hunting and fishing, reading good books, or something else (rock climbing!).

I believe God smiles on us when we stay busy. And He obviously provides the energy:

“Sow your seed in the morning and do not be idle in the evening. For you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good.” Ecclesiastes 11:6.

I have clung to this verse for years, because with day jobs and night hobbies/jobs, I do not know “whether morning or evening sowing will succeed.” Will I stay at Dannenbaum, or teach college full-time, or sell some books? I don’t know, so I pursue them all, as the Lord leads.

You never know what God is going to bless. Keep working hard and doing your best at two or three things! Maybe the work you do in the morning will be blessed, but it might be the thing you’re doing in the evening.

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