100,000 hours. That's the typical amount of time that you will have doing "professional" work. And we want to have meaning in that work. We want to know that God is pleased with what we do. So what should drive your career path? How does what you do for your pay check coincide with what kind of fruit your life will produce?

Image by Sole Treadmill

Marshall Segal over at DesiringGod.com offers these "eight aims that should drive every Christian career path." As he says, "Fall in love with these aspirations, and your work will bear much fruit for Christ, regardless of your field."

Here's the eight:

1. Aspire to Make Much of God

2. Aspire to Do God's Work

3. Aspire to Find Your Joy in God, Not Money

4. Aspire to Confound the World

5. Aspire to Provide for Your Family

6. Aspire to Overflow to Others

7. Aspire to Build and Protect the Church

8. Aspire to Work for What Lasts

Marshall finishes this way:

If these eight aims above are your aims, there are 100,000 (and more) good ways for you to spend your 100,000 hours, and the vast majority of them will not pay you to proclaim Christ. Vocational Christian ministry is not the only option. In fact, for most of us, the ministry that will make the most of Jesus likely is not “ministry.”

Maybe your 100,000 hours will supply the needs of strategic ministries or equip you to serve the church in really unique ways (technical, communications, maintenance, and more), or surround you with not-yet-believing people with whom you can more naturally share the gospel. Be open to the specific call of God on your life to vocational ministry, but don’t think that is the only option for effective, faithful, and fruitful ministry.

Whether you’re writing sermons at a desk, selling desks, putting them together, or harvesting the lumber, God can use you uniquely and powerfully for his cause in the world.

We spend a lot of time working, and God's plan isn't for you to stop, but to acknowledge that He has you working for His purposes if only you will aspire to it. Let Jesus lead the way.

For more explanation on the 8 aims as well as scripture references, read Marshall's full article here: 100,000 Hours: 8 Aims for Your Work.