God’s People, Do Not Choose the Wrong Career – Part 1
This is a 3-part message that will provide some deep insights to every young man and young woman pondering their career path, and may even bring a new perspective to people who are already well-established in a profession or business. Here is Part 1.

 

 

There is a saying in my native language Malayalam, stated when a person wants to send his milch cow to spend some time with a stud bull so it could conceive. He says, ‘I want to send her among the crowd’. Probably the saying originated from the fact that the cow is released among a herd of horny bulls waiting to pounce on any of their female kind straying into their midst.

Many parents, who have not yet received understanding of God’s laws relating to human morality, are unwittingly doing this to their daughters – sending them among ‘the crowd’. Of course, not with the same intention as the owner of the milch cow, but often with the same consequences at the end – pregnancy, or at least, pounced upon.

I am starting with the glamor industry because that’s where many young people, deprived of a firm Christian foundation, desire to enter, but on realizing they don’t have the opportunity to pursue this dream career settle for some other profession. But their initial career fantasies continue to have a firm place in their hearts as is evidenced by their keen interest in the lives of the celebrities in this industry.

Oh, how many young women, even faithfully married ones, have I personally seen swooning at the sight of some hunky actor, or describing their meeting with a male celebrity with an intense glaze of adoration in their eyes! How many young men today crave for a close encounter with the beautiful actresses over whom they fantasize lewdly in their imaginations!

Some years ago, my daughter took up, with my approval, some carefully screened modeling jobs. Until recently, if you happen to visit one of the world’s most popular tourist and business destinations in the Middle East, as soon as you emerged from the passport checkpoint in the airport, you will land in a huge lobby where the first thing you would notice was a giant poster with my daughter’s full-length picture – an ad promoting the telecom services of the government. She was winning national beauty contests as well, and there were suggestions that she be sent for global contests.

We knew she was in safe hands, but soon things were getting a little out of those protective hands. She was attracting far greater offers – even to act in movies. And she was beginning to draw unwanted attention, from powerful people in the regal circles. My daughter, trained well in prudence, knew it was time to quit, and she did. She made a decision that unbelievers could never understand, and they could only shake their heads in disbelief. But we rejoiced that her Godly upbringing kept her safe, for she chose not to go among ‘the crowd’. Moreover, she had the benefit of inheriting the spiritual genes of her father who decades earlier had made a similar choice.

My heart breaks when I see parents, especially in the materially advanced countries, sending their daughters among the herds without the least prescience of the consequences. As a young man, I was accepted into the modeling industry and my pictures appeared prominently in newspapers and on posters all over the country for a while. I was quickly making it well into this industry. Once, a father and his daughter came to the agency that had hired me so that the young lady could audition for a modeling career. The father earnestly sought an opportunity for his daughter to enter this glittering profession, and was even ready to allow his daughter to appear skimpily in some bikini ad. As he talked to the agent, his innocent daughter stood coyly near him, like a heifer waiting obediently to be sent by her master in any direction. So what’s the big deal if the young woman takes some risks in entering this industry, the father might have reasoned…there’s money, there’s fame, there’s the fantastic celebrity lifestyle, there’s the whole world to gain if his daughter could get a good opening into the glamor world – even if such opportunity might come at the cost of losing a trifle bit of her soul, and perhaps a little bit of her skin, among the crowd.

I don’t know what happened after that, but I guess with a father like that, she might have been an easy prey to pounce on, unless she was an exceptional woman with a her own strong sense of morality. (By the way, if this is not a movie actor writing this, but a servant of God, then it is because my young prudent wife, on seeing me alongside a curvaceous model in the newspaper, stamped her foot down and put an immediate end to any lingering doubts I had about this profession. Since then, I never went for a single modeling session, although the agency people came running home to plead with me to reconsider, and if I did, they assured they would ease the way for me to act in movies. Thanks, but no thanks, praise God!)

That the glamor industry, especially filmworld, is not a good place for decent young ladies to seek a career is a fact acknowledged by even the more conscientious of parents in that industry. Dharmendra, one of India’s most successful actors ever, has gone on record saying he does not believe that the film industry is a place suitable for girls. He was unperturbed by his sons joining the industry, but was vocal about his displeasure when one of his daughters chose to follow her dad’s footsteps.¹ Strangely, there’s no record of him ever being vocal about other’s daughters embracing him in the over 247 films he had acted in his career.

If you are, or will one day be, the parent of a blossoming lady or a burgeoning young man, or if you are a young lady or a young man yourself, remember that there are many professions in this age which your heavenly Father would not want you, or your child, to risk entering. Some are safe to a certain extent. Acting in films with themes that promote sound family values, in which actors do not have to lock mouths or be entwined around each other, or appear as a fully dressed model in some good advertisements, are ok. But there’s always an inherent danger even within the safe limits of these professions. The young person in any such profession is constantly exposed to tempting vibes coming from avenues of golden opportunities alluring them to the glamorous celebrity world, where there are too many avenues for one to sin and too much pressure on one to lay bare the skin.

Listen to prudent counsel, young man or young woman of God – it’s a wise and safe decision for you to steer away from all those professions where there is prevalent risk of compromising your morality and shipwrecking your future happiness. In return for your faithfulness, God will ensure you have a joyous and exciting life, both as a single now and later as a spouse, more than you could ever have as a successful professional in a morally risky industry. A marriage and family life blessed by God is something that even the most sought after and slobbered over celebrity can only dream of but can never attain.

 

Pappa Joseph

 

¹ ‘People’ – BBC Asian Network

 

CLICK HERE TO GO TO PART 2:  ‘Can A Christian Join His Nation’s Armed Forces?’