Calling, Vocation, and Your Powerful Gifts: Don Everts

The temptation can be, drink the coffee because I want to be amped up, I go into work, I give it my best, and then I come home and collapse. And I'm in that, like, collapse-like mode while being a spouse and a parent. You know, and it's like, am I giving it my best?

Am I using my gifts in that place? Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Anne Wilson.

You can find us at familylifetoday.com or on the Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. One of my favorite, just single verses in the Bible, New Testament. What do you think it is? I don't know.

Man, my wife doesn't know me. Do you know what I would say? For yours? Yeah. I think you'd say Psalm 139, fearfully and wonderfully made.

I like that one. What would it be? Romans 12, 1. Of course. Yeah. What's yours?

No, I love this because it's such a new, fresh, beautiful way to view people. Ephesians 2, 10. Just listen to these words, for we are His workmanship.

The actual Greek word there is poema, like He wrote us as a poem. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. It's not only identity, but it's calling, and it's gifting, and it's what God wants us to do. It's such a beautiful view of who we are and everyone around us is.

That's my favorite now, too. That is. It's got to be. We've got Don Edwards back in the studio to talk about the giftings of people in life. And so when I think of you, Don, in your book, you know, everyone has a gift. I think this verse has got to be central to your core theology.

It is. And what it says is these good works that He's prepared for us. Yeah. So there's like some forethought on God's part. Like, man, when I was creating you, Dave, I didn't just create you because I wanted to like look at you. I created you and shaped you because I want you to do damage in a certain way.

I want you to be a blessing in a certain way, right? Yeah. That He's created works for us to do. And I love, too, that it is plural, that there's multiple works to do. Yeah, there's more than one thing.

There's more than one. And I have to admit, this is one of the things that's really pushed me in this research project in diving into what the Bible has to say about the works that He's created for us. I kind of had this perception, you have a vocation. You have a calling.

You have a job. And then when you're not doing that, you're off. Yeah. Most of us think that way. Yeah, we do. And especially we introverts. It's like, well, I'm not in the church right now.

OK, so I don't have to talk to you. But actually, and Luther helps us see this, that vocation, the works that God has for us, are all the roles and responsibilities that God has placed you in. So what that means is I have a vocation as a father. That's one of my vocations in life. That's one of the works that God has prepared for me ahead of time to do. It's not just that I'm incidentally a father because I had kids, or it's not just like I have to parent because these kids live in my house. Ahead of time, God prepared this vocation for me. And he's not saying, oh, no, Don's a father. No, like, oh, what do I do now? Like, ahead of time, like, I want you to be a father. I also have a vocation as a son.

I have living parents. What's that work that God has me? I have neighbors, so I have a vocation as a neighbor. I have a vocation as a spouse, as a husband. And I'm a pastor.

That's on the list. Does that make sense? And writer.

But what I love about that is it kind of blows up. I mean, when you read Ephesians, it's one thing. What Paul isn't meaning is, I mean, you've got to have a job.

You've got to make a living. So, I mean, he does write in Ephesians, in everything you work at, work at it as if working for the Lord. So he does talk about labor and our posture and our labor.

But what he's talking about there is this, like, it is so heady, like, it should stop us in our tracks. Like you guys now, your grandparents. So you have a vocation as grandparents. One of the works God has prepared for you ahead of time is as grandparents.

And what I found as people dive into this material, boy, it makes them think. And they just sit there going, well, what am I supposed to be doing as a grandparent? Am I taking that seriously?

Am I thinking about that? Yeah, I mean, when I hear you say that, that is life-changing mindset because I think it's easy. I don't know if women do the same thing, but as a guy, I bring energy to my vocation. Like it's important and it's like, man, I prepare and I feel like I'm supposed to. And I don't often think the same way about being a husband or dad until you just use that phrase, it's your vocation. I'm like, wait, wait, wait.

Doesn't that do something? I mean, we were joking, you know, walking over here that we wrote a piece about Tom Brady and his wife Giselle going through a divorce. And the big idea of the piece was it's easy to be the goat on a football field and it's hard to be the goat at home.

There's nothing against him. It's like, man, we know. That's true for all of us.

That's right. It's like if you brought the same energy, any one of us that we bring to our vacation to our home, it'd still be hard, but it'd be, and we don't think that way. And so that was my lesson is like, man, let's learn.

I'm heartbroken for them, but man, all of us struggled just like they did. And I think some of its mindset, we don't think this is as important as what I do to make money to provide for our family. It's actually more important.

That's right. And the temptation can be drink the coffee because I want to be amped up. I go into work. I give it my best. And then I come home and collapse and rest and rest. And I'm in that like collapse like mode while being a spouse and a parent, you know, and it's like, am I giving it my best?

Am I using my gifts in that place? So there's something about thinking about calling and vocations. There's another place where Paul wrote in Corinthians where he said, this is to be my rule in all the churches. Live the life that God has assigned to you and to which he has called you. And those two verbs, to get nerdy about it, assigned and called, he actually uses in other places in a redemptive way that God actually assigns people for salvation and calls people to come to faith. So what Paul is doing there is lifting up as like beautiful and dignified and spiritually significant our everyday lives. Like God has assigned us and called us to live a certain life and live in a certain way.

And that's part of faithfulness. So Don, you're saying we each have an assignment. And maybe as we talked about the beginning, several assignments.

Several assignments. That God prepared for beforehand. And then rather than, you know, because sometimes we think about, you know, priorities. We've got to set our priorities.

And that's, that's like a really good conversation to have. But we tend to come to that with a sort of like zero sum, you know, some things are going to get this, some things are going to get that, you know. But when you think about like, I have vocations that I'm called to and that God has prepared me to. And it's not so that we're overwhelmed and it's like, I can never rest. Yes, we're supposed to Sabbath.

Yes, we should be off actually sometimes. But that there's a richness in recognizing these assignments that God has given us. I think just as I'm thinking about you as a listener, like to take a second and to let that sink. Like what is your assignment? Like some of it will be obvious if you're a mom, if you're a son, if you're a daughter, a dad.

But, but what else? And I love, I love that we're talking about your book, Discover Your Gifts, celebrating how God made you and everyone you know. Because it's taking an inward look and thinking, God, what did you put in me? As we talked about Psalm 139.

And you talked about earlier in an earlier episode, some gender differences and even some of the data that you have found. Hey, can I say this right as you get into that? One thing that just hit me down when you were saying about our calling and our assignment. You know, it's like being a dad and a husband, a wife, mom is just as important as what I do in my day job.

In some ways I think we have to say, am I right or wrong? It's more important because all the years I was a pastor at my church, I thought I was really important. And you know what? The day I left, they got another guy and he's great. And even Tom Brady, who's great as he is, there'll be another one that's going to, maybe not as good as Tom, but as long. But you know, you're going to be replaced. But when you walk off the earth as a dad or a mom, nobody, and another dad can come in and that's beautiful and another husband. But you are so the only person your kids are going to know in that way that it carries a little bit of weight. Like this really is the most important calling in my life. They're all equal, but there's a little bit of like, nobody else can do what I'm doing. I feel like moms, I don't know, that might be just too broad of a generalization, but I'm always carrying that. Like this, our kids, like this is the biggest thing. Do you think that you, Dave, or maybe do men struggle with that more?

Just confessionally, I would say, yeah, totally, totally. Did you find that in your research at all? Well, there were some interesting gender differences in the research. And the research doesn't tell us why the differences are there.

So it's limited. But here's some of the differences that we noticed. We asked people, and we've talked about this previously, there was this baseline question of how gifted would you say you are on a scale of 0 to 10? How gifted would you say you are? And we really described what we meant by that.

Because the research people know how to do that, to make sure we actually get the answers. Was there anybody who said there are 10? Sure. Oh yeah. Yeah.

I don't think a lot. I think the national, so the national average, if I have this right, was about six and a half, about 6.7 was the average. The average for women was lower than the average for men. Interesting. So that's an interesting data point. Women on average, and it wasn't by a lot, but it was about a point.

And it was consistent. So that's what the research nerds call statistically significant. Like that's meaningful.

Yeah. So, you know, why is that, that women's self-perception is that they're less gifted? So some of the possibilities. So one of those is, well, on average, men spend more time in the workplace. And here's an interesting thing about the workplace. When we ask people other questions about where are your gifts noticed? The workplace is high up there.

Yeah. And we ask the question, where have your gifts been developed and invested in to help you grow in them? The workplace is high up on the list. And so is that possibly one of the differences between the genders? And that's something to think about.

Like, we don't know exactly why it is, but I think it is important that we, that we recognize that. You know, to get back to what we were talking about earlier in terms of vocations and all the things that we do. I remember when my wife, so she was a campus minister and then we had our first baby and she was more the primary caregiver. I mean, you know, we shared it, but she was the more primary one.

And she really wrestled with like, I'm watching this baby. Yeah. And I'm changing diapers. My words to Dave were, I have no life. I have no life.

And I think a slice of that, there's a couple slices. What does spirituality look like then? Because I can't take a day of Sabbath when, you know, I have to feed every three hours.

How do I get a day of Sabbath? And then I think part of it is, well, I'm not doing ministry like I used to. I'm quote unquote, just taking care of this baby. I'm just a mom. I'm just a mom. And that's what I love about the doctrine of vocation.

The biblical doctrine of vocation says there is a vocation of being a mother, which means that is a work that God has prepared for you. That it is beautiful. It is dignified. It is important. God notices it. Preach.

You can grow in it. You can be mentored in it, et cetera, et cetera. So I don't remember what the question was that I was answering, but that is one of the differences that comes out in terms of gender. You know, where are people mentored? More African-Americans say they found mentoring in their gifts in the church context.

Among whites, that's lower. And it's more found in school and at jobs, in an occupation. So it's just something to think about as we're thinking about how do we celebrate people's gifts? How do we notice those gifts? How do we help mentor people in their gifts?

Yes, that's where I want to go. Let's talk about mentoring, because you talk about it in your book, and you did some research on that. And as a parent, we're called to mentor our kids. As a follower of Christ, I'm called to make disciples. That's mentoring. So what can we learn? How do you draw out gifts in the people that are mentoring?

And how have you done it? Because you're a researcher, you're a pastor, you're living this with your three kids. And how have you applied that over the years with your kids?

Yeah, that's a great question. It's powerful to notice in the scripture that, you know, as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. We have that in the Proverbs. And we tend to think about the spiritual discipling, you know, in terms of raising people in the faith and helping them grow in their relationship with Jesus. But one of the things that we see in the scripture is that there are a lot of mentoring relationships. And one of the scholars I was reading said it's kind of always part spiritual and then part technical.

Like you see leaders influencing other leaders. You see, so there's also a biblical precedent for helping people grow, not just as disciples of Jesus, but to help people grow as parents or grow as business people or grow in their vocations. So one of the things with my kids, and I stole this from someone else. Someone told me how their parents wanted to encourage them to try things and to grow in things. And so whenever they tried something and failed, their parents would bake them a cake. Really?

And they would throw them a party. Yeah. This is a guy I was interviewing writing kind of a biography. I remember him saying to me, Don, think of the confidence that gave me. That every time I tried something new and took a risk, even if I failed, my parents celebrate it and I got a cake.

So like with my kids trying to like encourage, not just read your Bible and, you know, be this certain way. So like during the lockdown, the initial lockdown in the COVID days, my two older kids who, you know, a lot of their life had been in each other's throats and, you know, they were close in age and, you know, so it was just natural. I kind of celebrated and helped fuel. They were thinking about my son, like doing a lot of TikTok. My daughter's this artist and everything. They wound up starting a company with each other.

Really? During the COVID lockdown, they called it Adriel Collective. And my son was the entrepreneur and he like did all of the back, you know, the kind of e-commerce stuff. And my daughter was creating the artwork and they were putting them on T-shirts and sweatshirts and all that sort of thing.

So it was one of those things. Like my wife and I had this talk where they were like, they were like, well, we want to do this dad and we want to use. And we had like helped them have this discipline of saving money, you know, and they were both about to finish high school. And it was like, do we let them like spend their money on this?

And I told my wife, I said, here's the thing. I want them to do it and I'm not going to tell them this, but I'm going to back them. If they lose all of it, I'm going to pay them back.

But I'm not going to tell them I'm going to do that. And the reason I was doing that was I wanted them to develop, like I think my son has entrepreneurial gifts. Yeah. How do you develop entrepreneurial gifts? You start things and it's risky to start things. You take risks, yeah. You take risks. And so like literally investing in him, like noticing that gift and I don't have it.

I don't have that gift, but he has these different gifts. And so like celebrating, like try it, try it. I think that's one way.

There have been plenty of ways. I feel like I haven't done great as a parent in doing that. But that's one of them is like to just be a cheerleader for our kids and like notice things in them and like try it.

I think you would do great at doing that because the whole mentoring process is really about people trying things and not doing them perfectly, right? I mean, that's what it is, right? And then you celebrate the effort, but then you come along like, well, what if you tried this differently the next time? I mean, that's what we all need.

That's what I need. And so trying to do that with my kids, not just, you know, don't be bugging each other, you know, but like try things and do things that are different that I don't know how to do. I love the cake idea. Isn't that wonderful? Yeah, what a great idea because you feel so worthless when you have failed.

But to have the parents celebrating like, but you did it, like way to go. And it helps you learn like this is maybe not the area I'm intended to use my gifts and they're not there. I remember, I think I was 19 and I heard a woman speak and she had this big graphic picture of a funnel on the screen.

And I thought that's interesting. What's the funnel for? And she said, you know, when we're younger, we should try as many things. The funnel is wide at the top. You're just throwing all kinds of ideas in the funnel. And the older that you get, you're going to realize, oh, that wasn't me.

That wasn't me. But you begin to learn as you get older, like, oh, this is it. This is my gift.

This is my gift. We've seen that in our own kids. And I think we were, I forget how old we were when someone said, raise your kids according to their bent. And so it made me start thinking that. Giftedness is what it was. Yeah, totally. And so it made us start looking for our kids' gifts. And they're all so unique and different.

And we started celebrating those. Yeah, you know, somebody taught me that more better than anybody. I just heard dad.

I was just thinking. He didn't do that for me. In some ways he did. He got better. He was a factory guy most of his life. And he would say, I'm not very gifted.

But he really had a genius, productive manufacturing mind. And he was one of my coaches in high school. And this is before I was dating Ann. I am on a ladder at a dairy in our little town because I got a summer job my sophomore year. So I'm 15 and I'm at the top of this ladder on a sidewalk. And her dad, who I knew but didn't know great, looks up and goes, Wilson, what are you doing up there? And I looked down. He's way down there. I'm scared to death, by the way. I'm up there like shaking.

I have to get this caulk out of these windows. Because my job all summer was all the dirty work. You go do it.

They give me a list every day. And you probably know the story. But he looks at me and he goes, come down here. And because I respect the man, I came down and I stood there and he goes, this is a waste of your life. I go, what? This isn't what you should be doing this summer.

And I'm looking at him like, OK, I'm going to go back up the ladder. But before I did, he said, you're an athlete. You're a scholarship athlete.

You will get a D1 scholarship. Your summer should be throwing a football. Interesting. I quit the job that day. What? I did. Is that right? And I went home to my mom.

She goes, what? Dick Barron told you you did this? Just so you know, none of us got to quit our job.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I do remember. And I got a scholarship. I mean, he saw what I probably didn't even see, but also thought it's sort of a waste of time. He's like, no, no, that's something you're good at. You're going to make money at this.

You're not going to have to pay for college. My dad was good at that. And he mentored me in that way.

And he did it. When our oldest son, he came up to see us and he goes, hey, CJ, I'm going over to see this guy. He's a robotics guy. You're into that kind of stuff.

Let's go. And I remember watching CJ just light up as he walked into this room and I'm like, what do these things do? And that's what he does with his life. That's calling out the gifts and people, right?

I love the story. And this is practical for parents, I think, too. Sometimes we don't have what it takes to mentor our kids in their bent.

And, you know, I remember my son, my oldest son, he was always so mechanical. He said, dad, can we build a spaceship? Can we build it?

And I literally, this would be my answer. I could write a short story about someone who builds a spaceship, but I can't build a spaceship. So I remember meeting this guy at church who was like, he had some engineering job and talking with him. And I found out he built spaceships with his kids all the time. And so I invited him to have a relationship with my son. Like, hey, could we go over and PVC pipes and I mean, my son died and gone to heaven.

I mean, it was this incredible thing. So there's something cool. I mean, we know that faith sticks more if kids have five, you know, the sticky faith stuff out of Fuller.

Five adults who are believers in their life. And so one of the things that we can do. Wait, just stop right there and let listeners hear that because that's important. I don't think a lot of people have heard that.

Yeah. So out of the Fuller Institute, one of the things they found is one of the things that correlates with kids, once they become adults, go to college, having their faith stick is if they had five Christian adults in their life, kind of on their team. Besides their parents.

Besides their parents. So like there was a guy with my oldest at church and I just said, I was wondering if you could be on Simon's team. And he went, oh, what does that mean? I said, I don't know.

I don't know, but I read in this book. And, and you're someone who, like, you have this totally different bent that's more like him. Could you just like talk to him in church every now and then and like be, and that guy wound up being Simon's first boss.

That guy was a small business owner. And, and so there's something and it's like, it's okay that we like, you know, it takes a village. Bring other people in.

And we bring other people in. And then I also, I tried it like with other people's children and say, man, I noticed this about you and this is a great thing. And I think a really practical thing we can do when we see other people up on a ladder or to bring other people into our children's life and say, I want to help you develop in this area, but I'm no good at it. I remember when my son started pitching the baseball so hard, it like hurt my glove.

And I had a hard time seeing the ball because I wear these progressive lenses now. And it's like, I need to get some other baseball people in your life to help push him in ways that I can't. So, so there's kind of a parental wisdom in that as well. And in the scriptures, you see that, you see this kind of iron sharpening iron that we're, we're made for that.

We're meant to be influenced and to influence other people. And it also refers back to your findings when people were asked to rate their gifts from one to 10 of do they have any, what was it again? Will you say it? Yeah, so how gifted would you say you are? That's it.

Zero to 10. Yeah. People who say zero are disconnected. That's one of the features that they have. And so think about it.

It's so easy for our kids to isolate more than ever now because they're in their rooms, they're on their phones, they're on their computers, they're on their anything. And so to be intentional, to bring people into their lives that will speak life to them, to help them on that journey, disciple and mentor them. And I would add, we put this in our No Perfect Parents book, pray that God would bring those people into your son or daughter's life. And God did for us. But when you pray that, then you look. Yeah. Yeah.

And you're like, who's got things that I don't have? Is that an answer to prayer? Yeah.

Hey, could you? It literally changed their life. It changed ours.

Yeah. You know, I love that right there at the end with Don and the Wilsons. Pray for God to bring those people into your lives and into your kids' lives. I really honestly believe that your prayers shape your destiny. So let's shape our destinies and ask God for gospel centered people in our lives and in the lives of our kids.

I'm Shelby Abbott, and you've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Don Everts on Family Life Today. Don has written a book called Discover Your Gifts, celebrating how God made you and everyone you know. This book explores the gifts God has given every person and what new research reveals about the difference those gifts can make for us, for our churches, and for our communities. We love this book, and it's going to be our gift to you when you partner with us financially. It's about gifts. If you give a gift, I don't know, I just thought that was funny. You could go online to familylifetoday.com or give us a call with your donation at 800-358-6329.

Again, that number is 800, F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And feel free to drop us something in the mail. This will require an envelope, paper, and maybe even a pen.

Our address is Family Life 100 Lakehart Drive, Orlando, Florida 32832. And we hope you'll join us tomorrow because Dave and Ann Wilson are going to be joined in the studio by Meg Meeker. She's going to talk to us about a lot of important things that are particularly relevant for our culture right now, including how to set healthy digital boundaries for kids because boundaries show your kids you care. That's tomorrow. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.