While the biblical picture of calling and vocation includes our giftedness, it also includes things like sacrifice, persecution, and an awareness of the needs of my neighbors. Jesus said that those who follow him carry crosses. Paul said that anyone who wishes to follow Christ will be persecuted. (Remember, Liddell died in a Japanese prison camp.)

Several years ago, The Huffington Post’s blog “Wait But Why” created “Lucy,” an imagined embodiment of today’s adult.

Lucy is what the article calls a GYPSY, short for Generation Y Protagonists and Special Yuppies.

Lucy is destined to be unhappy.

From their earliest years, GYPSYs like Lucy, born from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, have been told that they are special, that they can be whatever they want to be and that they should just “follow their passions” when choosing a career.

As many millennial observers have noted, GYPSYs struggle with a sense of entitlement.

According to the blog, “The GYPSY needs a lot more from a career than prosperity and security. Where the Baby Boomers wanted to live the American Dream, GYPSYs want to live Their Own Personal Dream.”

This is, as the HuffPo’s blogger points out, a recipe for unhappiness.

In rare situations when reality exceeds our expectations, those convinced of the inherent goodness of their own personal dreams will be happy. But when reality falls short, as is most often the case, these dreamers will be unhappy, even depressed. Reality will never match the dreams GYPSYs have been told to expect.

Christians are guilty of inculcating false expectations to millennials as well. For at least a couple of generations, Christian colleges and other educational institutions, with the noble intention of communicating the biblical concept of “calling” being more than full-time ministry jobs, have taught students to look at their own giftedness as the key (sometimes the only key) to discovering “God’s will.” I must confess my own guilt in this regard.

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