Being a student has been a somewhat strange time of transition into adulthood. Just as leaving home for university was both an exciting and scary prospect, now leaving university for work is just as exciting and scary.
Probably the biggest challenge facing me now as a graduand (funny word that) is the search for a job. No more living at home off my parents’ income, no more student loan to pay the rent and bills – from here on in, I need to start making my own living. That’s somewhat daunting, but there’s something satisfying about becoming financially independent, taking responsibility for myself in that way.
It raises the whole big question of “what do you want to do with your life?” As a Christian, I believe that my first priority is to honour, glorify and delight in God. Since he made humanity in his image, to be truly human is to be a symbol and pointer to the goodness, beauty and truth of the creator. Living life is a performance, a work of art. There are a billion and one ways of riffing on the theme of the image of God, countless styles and performances that can be made on that theme.
So to get down to what form my specific performance on the stage of life should take, I need to discern the calling that God has for me, something that arises out of the interplay of, firstly, the gifts and abilities God has given me, secondly, the needs and opportunities in the world around me, and thirdly, my freedom to make choices that express my love for and delight in God.
I believe that God has gifted me with a certain gift for words, for using language, and that I’m someone more inclined to thought and a more intellectual approach to things. At the moment, I’d say that my understanding of my vocation is something like “to engage critically and creatively with the culture around me”.
In particular, I love to write, and I want to tell stories. So one of my big ambitions is to be a successful published author. While I probably won’t match the mega-success of J K Rowling or Dan Brown, I hope that I’ll one day be able to make a living out of what I write. And not just prose – I’d also love to write for television and radio. Maybe theatre too, come to that, but I’ve not really thought about it. And not just fiction – I’ve really loved being involved with the student media, and if I could get into journalism then that’d be amazing, though I’m not sure I’ll be able to do that without further training, which is expensive, but if I can find a way of getting my foot on the ladder… Anyway, words and stories form a big part of what I want to do with my life.
More generally, I want to engage critically with our culture. I believe that the Christian message is good news of hope that our society and culture, indeed the whole world, desperately needs to hear. I want to engage both individuals and my culture generally in a conversation where I bring it into dialogue with the revolutionary, life-changing, all-encompassing message of Jesus. This means listening carefully to what people are saying, to the ideas being put forward in books and songs and films, as well as thinkers and the man on the street, and trying to discuss it seriously and thoughtfully. I also want to help other Christians live out their faith in the wholeness of life, and contribute to the life of the Church, particularly in my local community of believers.
My third great hope and ambition, arguably the most important, is to have a family, to be a loving husband and father. At the moment there’s a rather important missing ingredient in that plan, but I trust that God will help me find a woman to love and cherish if that’s what he wants for me!
So what do I plan to do? I’m currently looking for work. If it can be in some way connected to what I want to be doing, so much the better, but realistically I may need to take something that’s only indirectly related at best to support myself as I get some experience and try and get on with writing my novel and other projects in my spare time. I plan on staying in Cardiff for at least the next academic year, but beyond that, God only knows. I’d like to visit China again, and I hope that vast country can be reached more and more with the Gospel, but my inclination is that my “mission field” is here at home in the UK. I’ve got my first job interview next week, a job I’d be pleased to get, but God knows what the future holds – quite literally, I’m glad to say (though Swithun might disagree!). Anyway, I look forward to my new adventures as I leave university!