Where are You?

With gratitude to Fred Bishop —

Quit whining and bloom where you are planted because you sure can’t bloom anywhere else!

— And long before Fred or I came along, ’twas said by John Calvin —

The Lord bids each one of us in all life’s actions to look to his calling. For he knows with what great restlessness human nature flames, with what fickleness is borne hither and thither, how its ambition longs to embrace various things at once. Therefore, lest through our stupidity and rashness everything be turned topsy-turvy, he has appointed duties for every man in his particular way of life. And that no one may thoughtlessly transgress his limits, he has named the various kinds of living “callings.” Therefore, each individual has his own kind of living assigned to him by the Lord as a sort of sentry post so he may not heedlessly wander about throughout life.

— Which Derek Brown interprets this way: “Constantly daydreaming about a different life, a better line of work, or a new community will lead to instability and lack of productivity.” (the Gospel Coalition)

Live the Life God’s Given You

More importantly, it appears that Paul might have approved the parental counsel I received as a young man. In 1 Corinthians 7:17, he tells those anxious over getting married:

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. . . . In whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God. (1 Cor. 7:17, 24)

Paul doesn’t make this an absolute rule, for he tells the slave to be content with his status in life but to seek freedom if possible (1 Cor. 7:22). Those married must remain so, but the unmarried are free to either marry or stay single (1 Cor. 7:9, 27–28).

Nevertheless, Paul recognized wisdom in burrowing yourself into your God-given calling and seeking contentment and productivity there— rather than constantly looking around and pining for something else (cf. Prov. 17:24). Nor does genuine repentance necessarily require a change in one’s work (Luke 3:10–14). But it might—and that’s where we come to a deficiency in the saying, “Bloom where you are planted.”