When God Uses Your Worst Decisions: Calling, Cancer, and the Classroom

In Part 2 of this Lifework conversation, host Dr. Stan Norman picks up Dr. Trevor Babcock’s story right where the cliffhanger left off: a clear, lifelong plan to become a chemical engineer—and the slow-motion collapse of that plan in the real world of co-op work, panic attacks, and an unexpected loss of desire for the career he had built his identity around. Trevor describes how God used that work experience not to confirm his calling, but to clarify that engineering was not it, leading him through psychology and, finally, into an English degree that fit his loves more than his family legacy did.

From there, Trevor walks through a winding path of substitute teaching (including the one memorable job he was fired from), a move to New York City and graduate school at NYU, and a season of spiritual drift in the “big, crowded, lonely” city that culminated in a shocking cancer diagnosis discovered only because he was worried about the health consequences of his own bad choices. He reflects on how God used that lowest point—his worst behavior and deepest rebellion—to literally save his life, reshaping his view of God’s providence, anxiety, and control.

Trevor then traces how “just do the next right thing” became his practical theology of calling: adjunct teaching in Texas during the recession, a PhD at Indiana University, and eventually a faculty role at Williams Baptist University, all discerned not by dramatic signs but by biblical wisdom, community, prayer, and ordinary obedience. Finally, he opens a window into his day-to-day vocation in the classroom—using world literature, Augustine, Boethius, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet to talk about virtue, suffering, depression, and hope—and explains how sharing his own story of darkness and redemption helps students see that they are not alone and that God can also work through their pain to shape their lifework

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to this second edition, the second episode of Life Work Podcast with Dr. Trevor Babcott. We want to pick up the story that we kind of left on a cliffhanger. He had graduated high school, and you were bound to determine clear call, dead set on being an engineer. You're going to the University of Cincinnati, and then what? Crash.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Well, no, uh, not immediately. Okay. I had a really good freshman year, uh, no problem. Uh was doing classes fine, got involved in young life, got to run a summer camp, which is really uh sorry, not a summer camp, a weekend camp, which is genuinely one of the like highlights of my life. So much fun. Um, second year uh was doing fine too. Um uh did pretty well in in a few classes in particular. And then your third year at the University of Cincinnati, they have the um co-op program. Okay, we might call it an internship. So you get a job in your field. Uh, all right, good. My grades are fine. I should get a pretty good job. I did get a pretty good co-op or internship. Go and work there for three months. And I can't admit it to myself, but I absolutely hate it. Yeah. Um, back to school for three months and then back to work for three months. At the end of what would have been then my sixth month on like actually in an engineering firm, I have at the time I didn't know it, but look, that that's what a panic attack is. I mean, I just because again, I like I when when you got your whole life in, you know, in front of you.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

All your eggs in that one basket, and you figure it out maybe this basket isn't the one.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Right. And I just had such a strong sense of this is it. And then I learned through experience that wasn't it, you know, and so maybe there's a lesson here, you know. Senior year in college. See, uh this is the middle of college now, and I am uh uh three years into a five-year plan. It's okay, it's five years by design because of all this co-oping. Um, which I'm so grateful for that I had that work experience. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Because, you know, now I can not I can change the one sense, a work experience refined and clarified the calling, not in yes, this is it, but more like, okay, this isn't it.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Exactly. Um, there's uh a book I recently saw by um oh Kevin De Young, Kevin DeYoung. Uh and the book is called Just Do Something. Yes. And it's about work, vocation, all this stuff. And uh I I just really appreciate that. Just do find out, you know. Um, obviously say your prayers, obviously don't do anything crazy, but just pick something and go. And and so I'm glad I did that and I learned through experience that guess what? I'm not my dad. Uh like the the fear that I would never live up to him and and his achievements is true. But I've you know, on the other hand, I've got other achievements. I'm made in a different way, I'm just not him. And that just took me a while to get there.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

So when when was the switch turned from okay, engineering's not it?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Maybe maybe psychology. Psychology was the middle of five years, okay, which I really enjoyed. I was uh seeing the therapist at the time. And I just kept talking about, you know, I got out of what I thought was my last English class, and I just kept talking about that, thinking about that. And for fun, I would read like Byron. And my friends pointed out to me, not a guy, a lot of guys just read Byron, like maybe, you know. And so ended up, you know, well, if I'm not gonna be an engineer, why not English? Um, and just sort of drifted into that. Um, and yeah, finished, finished with a bachelor's uh in English.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Did that add years to the college?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Like another so again, the uh the engineering program is five years by design, and I got out by in five years still. Okay, um, so that's English degree. With an English degree, though, not you know, which was not expected.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

So you graduate from that and then you're going to grad school.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Right. Not at first. I had this what you might, I guess they call it a gap year now. Okay. Um I was doing it before it was cool. And uh what do I do? I um oh, here's a fun one for you. Can I tell you about the one time I got fired from a job? Sure. Okay. So more of that like learning through experience thing. Um uh substitute teaching, because what do you do with an English degree? So I was like, uh, well, I don't have any education background, but I'll substitute. I worked in a lab a little bit, I substitute taught a little bit. And uh substitute taught, uh, I think it was sixth grade, seventh grade, something like that. This I had a certain student that was just acting up, acting up, acting up, all right, son, uh, to the to the principal's office with you, but he wouldn't go. And I was the where I was located in the school was like, okay, I need to grab a teacher from somewhere else. Can you keep an eye on these kids? Because I need to walk this little snotball to the office because he's not going. Well, the student ends up getting nose to nose with me, which is quite a fee because I'm like a foot taller than this kid, and is threatening me. And I I've, you know, I had never even heard of such a thing. I was, I was blessed to go to a deep pretty decent high school. You were threatening a teacher, like physically. And uh, Norman, I have to confess here on this podcast that I used some language that was um effective but not appropriate. Yeah. And uh um fortunately, you know, and and fortunately that kid could kind of cowed him and he because if if he would have swung at me, I mean, you know, that hurts me, but now what does he get expelled for that? You know, anyway, he walks off to the principal's office and then uh uh a couple hours later I follow for the last time.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Yeah. Um so then you you go to grad school. Yeah. Gap year.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Uh applied to, I just I just wanted to go east. No other, no big, you know, not a spiritual thing. Just felt like uh, I don't know, it's maybe the one place in the country I hadn't lived. So I decided to go east, throw some applications to the east, end up getting in to New York University, which was like kind of the oh, what the heck, I'll just throw one out there. And I got denied by the schools that I thought were I was a shoe in. And then I get into the one that I thought I would never have any chance. Well, I move out to New York, and this is where, you know, again, saved, you know, I'm walking with the Lord, and this is where I get shaky, frankly. Um, just start making some choices in the big city. It's a it's a big, crowded, lonely place. Yeah. And uh, and and and look, I'm I'm not living right. Easy to get lost. Yep. In many ways, in every way. And uh uh so the way the story goes is I'm getting toward toward the end of my you know master's program. Um, I'm frankly, you know, not to put too fine a point on it, I'm I'm I'm at risk for like I'm putting my health on the line. Right. And so I decided I talked to a friend, I'm like, I'm kind of anxious about this. Once I graduate, I lose my health insurance because it's tied to the school. Exactly. And uh, and she was like, you know, you're probably fine, just go get checked. Maybe it'll help your anxiety. So I was like, okay, go in and get checked. And they say, no, no, no, no problems there, but um, hey, I am gonna send you um to the oncologist because you've got cancer. Okay. And so I've told this story many times, and and and what I've learned from this, and this is maybe like the lesson of my life, is that God used my worst behavior. Okay, it's when I was running from him and I I knew better, you know. I I like I wasn't making excuses, I was willfully choosing to live in sin. And through that, because of that, that's what God used to get me into the doctor to make for all I know save my life. Save my life. And uh, I mean, you you step back from that and it's just like sheesh, if God can use the worst of my decisions to accomplish his will, then maybe he's really in control. And and and just, I mean, the anxiety, it just it just melts away. If if that really gets, if if if I find that in my heart, the anxiety just melts away. He's in control, I don't need to be. So you go through a cancer treatment plan. That's right. Okay, I go back to now I I could have stayed in New York, but I was like, I I don't want to be pumped full of, you know, uh uh chemo, thrown up on the train. No, thank you. Um, I'm just gonna go home and be with my parents and just take as much stress out of my life as I can. The the all you know, goal one is to get better. There is no goal two. Yeah. Right. And so that's what I did, went to Cincinnati. Uh, in terms of God's providence, here's another one for you. My uh I had some great uh doctors. They were gonna put me through chemo, and um he had a relationship, this this this oncologist, with um not with uh Lance Armstrong's doctor. Okay, so Lance Armstrong famously is a testicular cancer survivor, that's the same as me. Not his doctor, but like the architect of his team of doctors looked at my case and said, No, this this kid, he doesn't need chemo, radiation is good. And he was right. And if you know much about chemo and radiation, like uh just a yeah, a bullet that uh that I dodged there. Um and so what what is that? But but again, how long ago was this? This was I was 26 um at the time. This is what 2008, 2008. Cancer free. Cancer free for geez, what's it been? I stopped counting a while ago. Uh 18 years.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Yeah, we're we're getting to 20, aren't we? Good for you. So, where in all of this did a vocation pivot occur that you know, I may need to get a job and uh I may want God to be the one directing this path.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Right. So, you know, I'd I'd I'd love to dress this up spiritually, but frankly, I'm not going to. I mean, for me, it's it's just been ever since that sort of crystal clear picture shattered. Yeah. Um, it's just my my life has been what's the next right thing? Um that's a that's a catchphrase I learned. Uh, you know, I'm involved in uh uh celebrate recovery. Uh we're launching one at my church, First Baptist Walnut Ridge. We'd love to see you. Um and this is for all kinds of sin. Um, you know, anything from say divorce care up to you know alcoholism, drug addiction, and so on. And what one one I've learned so much from this program, and again, one is do the next right thing. And so for me, okay, I got a master's. Um, well, I could teach, it had kind of bad luck with that. Um, maybe, you know, but maybe being a professor would be different. Let's just, you know, uh Ecclesiastes, throw our bread on the water, uh, throw something at the wall, see what sticks. Um, moved at the time. This is oh eight and then into 09. And uh, as you might recall, there was a huge recession. And uh, you know, uh ground central or uh ground zero for that recession was New York City. So I mean, I was I I knew people, I was at New York University working, uh, I was working at the time and in the business office. I saw the last round of Lehman Brothers employees get hired. I knew a gal who was like, oh my gosh, I didn't get in, I didn't get hired by Lehman. Now what am I gonna do? Which famously uh went out of business. Um, was it in 07, 08, right? So um anyway, uh the the economy was was tanking. Uh so in the summer of 09, uh my current wife and I moved to Texas. Um, we lived to about a mile or so away. I she lived with a friend. I found a place not uh so far, worked as a uh uh adjunct professor, but found enough adjuncts to sort of you know cobble together uh a leave uh a living for a single guy. And then I said, Yeah, this is nice. This seems right, this feels okay. Let's apply to PhD schools. You got to apply to there, it's just so hard to get in. I got into a couple, uh we're moving to Indiana, babe. So we we get married and we go to Indiana University there for nine years uh teaching. Love it. Uh love the teaching, love the uh schools. I got to study uh with this guy, Rob Fulk, who was who is like, this guy should have been at Oxford. You know, that's not a that's not me bragging, it's just uh my dumb luck, is that I was studying with the guy on um Anglo-Saxon England, uh England. And so awesome. Uh just decided to do medieval because of they were just great at that. And I was like, okay, like sounds good. I'll sign up for that. And uh yeah, uh just one foot, you know, in front of the other. Uh there were some slog days, Vanessa reminds me. Uh like you were you were getting a little wobbly toward the end there, but but we made it through, um, put out some applications. And this little school in uh northeast Arkansas, I think it's called Williams Baptist University. Yeah, Baptist University, that's right. Uh hired me and uh and here we are.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

Okay. Wow. So talk us through how you look at your work in t in terms of calling, vocation. How how do you see your ministry as a professor of English? Fulfilling, making disciples, fulfilling, encouraging, helping others prepare for their vocation to live for the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Um there's a couple routes I want to go here. I'm I'm I'm making some notes. Um and uh doing it. So so like so the two questions I see here is like how is the vocation been like the the the the Lord's direction uh in my life, and also what what is it like to actually do the job in in a Christian context? Um real quick, let me do the first one first. You know, how has God's vocation been? Like I said, you know, it's just been do the next right thing has been my mantra. Um I that that strong sense that was so wrong, it has never never really felt that again. And um was it Kierkegaard? Uh one of these famous highfalutin guys said, you know, uh, life must be lived forward, but only makes sense backwards. And uh, you know, I really do think that we'll all get to the end of history and and God will reveal the plan and it'll be like, okay, okay, wow, I didn't, okay, now I get it. And uh, and I think individual threads, my little thread will be that as well. It'll make sense in reverse. I will see that God was always guiding me through at every step, you know, uh Proverbs 16 stuff. Uh I I will see that clearly, but at the time, you don't, I don't really feel that sense. I just make the next right decision. So that's that's what vocation is like for me. Um, I think uh, you know, I've heard of other people that just had a strong impression this is where the Lord is leading, that's where the Lord is leading. For me, uh, I'd love to tell you that. It's just that's not been my story. My story has been what's the next right thing. What does it look like to actually teach day-to-day?

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Let me interject a little thing, not to discount what you just said. But I suspect in your decision making over what's the next right thing, there's probably some biblical teaching, some prayer, some uh past experiences and life wisdom, and maybe some mentors speaking into or have a database of influence in your life such that what's the next right thing really is the fruit of the leading of God, maybe not in some kind of existential sense of feeling, but in these biblical teachings, in these biblical uh readings I've had, in these steps of reading theology, or maybe hearing a sermon, or these life experiences that God uses to orchestrate helping you determine what is the next right thing.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Yeah, that's absolutely maybe I went way too fast over that, but that's absolutely all true. Of course, I learned at a young age, okay, with with during that high school, like on fire for Christ, as we used to say in the 90s. Um, I really was. And I made some maybe zealous mistakes. I I thought I was hearing from the Lord. Um, for example, I thought I was hearing from the Lord, go witness to your next door neighbor. And this is something that was really scary to do, but I did it. I knocked on his door and go and went and witnessed to him. And he said, Okay, well, thanks for thinking about me. Thanks, but no thanks. Like a religion, okay, okay. I go home and I get the strong impression that, and I'm I'm like 17, I'm not like just a little kid, I'm 17 years old, and I get this strong impression, okay, now you need to do it again at 3 a.m. in the morning. I laugh now. Did you get shot? I I I went and rang his, he didn't open the door. I rang his doorbell at three in the morning because I just I just had this, and okay, so why did I tell that story? Uh to make myself look like a crazy person. But I learned what I learned from that is I had I had a lot of conversations after that about what does hearing from the Lord mean? And and so what I really, really learned was that look, this is not a single player game, this Christian walk of ours. Jesus doesn't send out one by one, he sends out two by two, he sends out in a group. We are meant to be in a church. I mean, the the New Testament is just so clear on this. And so what I learned the hard way is okay, little zealot, um, let's make sure that we're talking to people and seeking advice and you know, consulting scripture and just, you know, in instead of maybe just going off every little feeling we have, let's make sure that we're getting that wisdom, that we're living in communion in a community with people who are able to speak into my life. So that's the situation that led me to all that stuff. Maybe I glossed over.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

No, no, I I I want to just make sure to encourage you through what I observed, as well as to those that are listening, that uh doing the next right thing has a good, strong infrastructure if it's approached through a biblical Christian worldview.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

That's exactly right. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

All right, you're at Williams. I'm at Williams. You're with our students. What do you do? How do you do? In what way do you help them in their hopefully walk with the Lord? Uh, and through that finding their do the next right thing path for them.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Yeah. Um so let me uh uh uh want to talk to you about uh world literature. Um, I was hoping you would. Yep. Finally, thank you. No, finally it's time. Um look, I I I teach all sorts of stuff. I teach uh uh the old stuff. Homer, you know, uh that movie's coming out, The Odyssey, uh, with Matt Damon this summer. Uh hopefully they do it justice. We'll, you know, we're kind of not getting our hopes up, but we'll see. Okay. Uh teach the Odyssey, uh uh the Iliad. Um, and we do the entire Aeneid. Now, the Aeneid is is the the the Romans doing what the Greeks did. And the Romans are gonna write their epic poetry too, and it's all about Aeneas. And and and so this is this is like first century BC. So Christianity has not is not yet come over the horizon, the sun has not yet risen, but there's so many places. Okay, look at what Aeneas is valuing here. Look at what the Romans said was good in terms of things like personal responsibility, um, patience, um, uh piety. Um, now, of course, he's a pagan. You gotta point that out, that's worth pointing out. But there's all these virtues here, and it's like this is pre-Christian, this is just virtue. And and and uh, you know, I encourage my student students, the Romans they got a lot wrong, but they didn't get everything wrong. And look what they emphasized as right. And so I look for those places of like, yes, you can actually find good things in that, you know, wicked, frankly, culture. Even there was good things. Um, I emphasize this stuff. We get then we move on, we get to uh St. Augustine, we get to Boethius, uh, who is a Christian Roman senator right there at the end of the empire, uh, who writes a book called Um The Consolation of Philosophy. And it's just Job 2.0. Um, he's just talking about I was thrown in prison for the wrong reason. I I didn't do it. For all we know, he's telling the truth. He didn't do it, uh, and is executed by the emperor for a crime he didn't never committed. And he wrote a book about dealing with it as a believer from like 480 AD or something like this. And um, look, like we have all this Christian heritage. Um, we've got this treasure trove of literature over the centuries. And my job is just to bring out um from literature, whether it's Christian or not, um what does literature have to tell us about how we should live, about what is right, about who we are. Another example I would love to give you. Um, we just finished Hamlet. They didn't have psychologists in 1600 AD in England. What they had was they had theologians and they had playwrights, they had Shakespeare. And so, toward the beginning of this play, Hamlet turns to the camera, turns to the audience, and he says, How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world. Okay. Weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable. That's what my life is. Nothing interests me. What a textbook definition of depression that is. Yeah. Okay. And so, like that, this is why I love literature. I look back into the past and it's like, okay, I'm not uniquely crazy because Shakespeare just to a T described what I was feeling in my young teen teen years. And and, you know, students, I I often tell them, I don't know who I'm talking to here. Like, I can't, uh, some of you I can get to know, I can't get to know them. Of you. You know, I don't know where you're coming from. But if there's someone in this room who's dealing with this stuff, look, you're not alone. And I use this as like an inroad to, you know, I share, I'm pretty open guy. I share maybe a little bit too much sometimes, but I hope, my hope is it's not therapy for me, it's encouragement for you. Look at what God has done for me. I really believe He can do the same thing for you. And please just know that you're not alone. Please know that if worse comes to worse, there's at least one guy you can talk to. I won't look at you like you're crazy because you already know that I'm crazy.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

I think that's a great place to land with that encouragement invitation, not just to our students, but to any of our listeners, that there is a God who's aware of who you are. He sees you in your struggles, in your pain, uh in your trials, in your sin. And there is a path of redemption for you in his son, Jesus Christ. I found it, you found it, and to any of our listeners, you can too. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Trevor. Thanks for having me.