Whenever I speak, I hang around afterward and talk with individual audience members about their specific questions and concerns. As a result, I’ve had countless conversations with people looking for an answer to the question of significance. They sit in those pews and wonder, Did I miss my calling in life? Is my life’s work meaningless to God? Is ministry the only way to impact eternity? Sometimes they lower their eyes in resignation and guilt—vocational guilt. But that guilt is a lie.

The interview playing over my car radio was standard fare. The host of a Christian program was interviewing a wildly popular contemporary Christian music star—little more than background noise as I drove down the highway. But then the discussion landed on the topic of serving the Lord in ministry. The musician told the listening world how his brother was once a truck driver but gave up trucking in order to serve the Lord as an assistant pastor. This drew hearty affirmation from the host, who was actually laughing at the comparative insignificance of truck driving. The music star then recounted his congratulatory words to his brother: “I always thought you had more in you than being a trucker.”

There are 3.2 million truck drivers in the United States.

I turned the interview off and silently drove down the highway, wondering, What are the truck drivers who heard this feeling right now? A superstar Christian just implied that 3.2 million truck drivers are less significant than assistant pastors.

A massive question now hangs in the air—a question loaded with profound implications for the significance of your life and vocation: Are truck drivers—the same drivers who transport our food, clothing, building materials, and church sound systems—less significant to God?

Ultimately, the only true measure of significance is how much something or someone is valued by God. But many people mistakenly believe God only values ministry work, because it deals with eternal souls. In their minds, ministry is the only work that counts for eternity. They assume God places little, if any, lasting value on work that deals with the temporal things of everyday life. The implied ranking of our vocations is obvious. Additionally, when someone who holds that belief isn’t careful with his words, it sounds as if he’s applying that same ranking to each person’s individual value to God. Our superstar probably didn’t mean to imply that truck drivers are less significant to God, but that’s what many of us heard.

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