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A Career for Life?
by Sam Miller
AJ has chosen to follow God’s leading for his career and is completing his missionary pilots training at AWA-TN at Heritage Academy!
The other day I was driving my family down the highway when a police car went sailing past with lights on and siren wailing. After a few seconds had passed, my 4 year old son said, “I want to be a policeman when I grow up.” I responded, “That’s a good job choice Isaac; what made you decide that?” as if I didn’t make the connection. He replied, “So I can buy a fast car like that.” You should have seen his face when I told him that when a person becomes a policeman, he or she is given the car without having to buy it.
What do you want to be when you grow up? This thought is on the minds of young people all the way from a very young age to adulthood, and some adults would contest that the question never really goes away all through life. It’s a fair and decent question to ask, especially in regards to a career. You need some type of occupation to support those who will depend on you when you no longer depend on your parents.
When I was a child, I wanted to be a professional soccer player. I dedicated myself to that sport. I ran many miles for conditioning. My father and I built a full size goal in our yard so I could practice every day. Our house had a loop inside, and I would time myself dribbling around that loop, assessing penalty seconds for each item I bumped, continually striving to be faster and better. I analyzed everything I did, deciding whether it would make me a better athlete or not. I added more protein to my diet in hopes of gaining a size advantage, I lifted weights in hopes of gaining a strength advantage, I practiced skills repeatedly in hopes of gaining a speed and accuracy advantage. Everything I did was in hopes of achieving my desired outcome.
I never become a professional athlete, but the skills, strength, diet and dedication helped to mold me into the person I am today. The conditioning and diet may not have seen me through to being the athlete I dreamed of, but without that exercise, I would not be as useful to God working in vocational areas here at Heritage Academy or working on mission trips at Historic Adventist Village in Battle Creek, MI, or with ACTS World Relief in disaster response. The dedication and hard work may not have ultimately aided me in achieving the goal I set for my life, but they developed a dedication and perseverance that I use daily. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
The team of AWA-TN aviation students work together to educate their schoolmates and others about ACTS World Relief and gain valuable experience in God’s work.
After realizing I wasn’t going to be able to compete at a world level in soccer, I decided to become a professional pilot. Again I practiced, I studied, I dedicated myself to the goal I had set. From one job to the next I worked my way up, honing my skills with each step: first in a light single, then a light twin, next a turbo prop, and finally into jets. I thought I was developing my piloting skills; little did I know it was the skills away from the cockpit that God was having me develop. Along the way, I was asked to assist in many areas within the companies I worked for from flight instruction, scheduling and logistics, to regulatory compliance, finance and maintenance. God is now using these skills in an area not of my design, but of His.
Quite often we encourage young people to choose one career for life; then we have them study, practice and dedicate themselves to become the best in that field of choice. This is good and noble, but I believe the Bible tells us we should aspire to do more. In Matthew 25:14-30, God tells us we should use our talents, all of them, expand and multiply them.
With more talents, we can become more valuable to our master. Messages to Young People page 425 says, “The best educated in the sciences are not always the most effective instruments for God’s use. There are many who find themselves laid aside, and those who have had fewer advantages of obtaining knowledge of books taking their places, because the latter have a knowledge of practical things that is essential to the uses of everyday life.”
AJ works on many projects to round out the skills he will need as a missionary pilot.
I am excited about the students here at Heritage Academy who have chosen to develop their piloting skills. Combined with the other skills they are learning—first response medical training, gardening, construction, evangelism and many others—God will be able to use these young people and their many talents to accomplish his work in the mission fields He calls them to.
