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Good morning. One small item of news this week lifted my spirits. While war, crime, and political wrangling still dominated the headlines, for a few minutes this story pierced the gloom. It reported the findings of the annual Â鶹Éç Bitesize Careers survey. More than four thousand 13 to 16 year olds were asked what jobs they’d most like when they’re older. Given a choice of ten companies to work for from a list including Apple, Google, Disney and the space agency NASA, first place went to the NHS, the service which nearly all of us depend on from cradle to grave. It gets a lot of bad press. But it’s hugely admired, and these youngsters wanted to be part of it, wanted to care and to serve, and were less interested in salary than in satisfaction. Maybe not surprisingly then, their number one choice of occupation was ‘doctor’, and I was intrigued by a medic interviewed on the findings. Reckoning that he wouldn’t be able to do the GCSEs children faced today, he advised them: ‘If you want to be a doctor, go for it.’ Surely unrealistic, and out of reach for most? Perhaps so. But if their passion remains the desire to relieve suffering, to care for people in need, they’ll find plenty of ways to express it, whichever exams they pass. A willingness to change direction can be important in finding satisfaction in any career. A company executive swaps the boardroom for the classroom, retraining as a teacher; an academic moves from his lecture theatre to devote his time to people with learning difficulties; for any of us a long-awaited retirement can find its comfort disrupted as we are driven to help out at a food bank, or to support vulnerable neighbours. It's not the life we’d expected and doesn’t mean we won’t panic, at times, feel out of our depth. But there’s good precedent. The apostle Paul recounts an astonishing catalogue of disasters he endured, from shipwrecks to public beatings, a stoning, hunger, thirst and much more. After it all, he hears Christ’s words, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ One of my heroes, Baptist minister John Clifford, who knew grinding poverty as a child labourer, established a vast church in Victorian London. He helped thousands, campaigned against British concentration camps in the Boer war and all kinds of social injustices. Yet he was haunted by a feeling of uselessness – consoled only by a sense of God’s grace. If lots of those youngsters who want to become doctors get there - great. But if they don’t, I hope that at least they’ll feel useful.