“Oh, so you’re the holy type too,” she said as she frowned.
She waved vaguely at my bleached hair and turquoise roots. “Your hair threw me off, I thought you were cooler than that.” We sat opposite each other, strangers stuck touring a foreign land together for 11 days. We had just gotten past the question of what I did for a living when the “full-time bombshell” dropped.
Yes, I work full-time. No, I don’t exactly work for a church, but to you, it might as well be same thing. The nuances don’t matter to most people. Maybe if I’d told you that I worked for a non-profit instead, your interest would have been piqued for all of 5 minutes.
Until you realised I didn’t mean UNICEF but more … reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I’d been in this situation before, each time on the receiving end of differing degrees of derision.
Each time Pride is pricked, an indignant voice would come rising to the surface in protest: But I am cool!
I’m not doing this because I didn’t have any other options – I wanted to do this. The common impression I encounter is that people who work for “church” can’t possibly be very capable.
I happen to work with a group of exceedingly talented people who could very easily choose to be anywhere. But we are here.
At least, that was what I wanted to say. I opted to muster a pained, thin smile instead. What was the point of justifying what I did, to people who would never understand my work or world?
Your world is full of venture capitalists, shiny startups and new technologies.
All things I am interested in as well. But it doesn’t matter because I’m in “full-time ministry”. What new technology could we possibly need or appreciate?
Surely we’re more likely to be stuck in the foggy depths of the 1990s making terrible graphics and lame websites. Always one step behind the world, despite the call to be the light that would shine in the darkness. And let’s not even get started on Christian films.
These are the moments that Pride wished it could say I was a creative director at an advertising agency, or that I worked at Facebook or Google – or at least that I ran my own business selling Christian gifts and stationery. Anything else would be more promising.
Far fewer conversations with people outside of the “church world” would have died so quickly without me having had a chance to say more.
These interactions would stab at my self-worth.
I wasn’t cool enough for the world, and yet at times, I was obviously not compliant enough for the church. Either ways, it was a game where Pride wanted to prove its worth. To wish it could stake its claim on being good enough for something.
I wanted to be admired, respected and valued.
But whenever I finally look at Pride and tell it to hush, perspective calmly rolls back into the picture.
I know why I do what I do. Because every time I try to do anything else, something inside me tells me I was made for something greater. And “greater” to me looks like taking the gifts and talents that God has placed into my hands and using it to lift Jesus’ name up to my generation.
No amount of money, position or creative opportunity can outweigh what the Lord has placed in my heart for this season. And seasons change, I know. But being obedient to the call of God on my life right now tells me I am in the best possible place, doing the best possible thing, and actually really enjoying it.
It is not a sacrifice to be here.
I am not sacrificing my career. I am not sacrificing my financial stability. When I look at the people I get to to go to work with every day, at the things we are privileged to do and build, at the lives who are touched through the ministry we support – it becomes my honour to say that this is actually what I get to do for a living.
This is living.
A couple of months back I had a really painful conversation with the Lord, when this sentence dropped right onto Pride and smothered her whole.
“What if, apart from the purpose I have called you to, the gifts and talents you think you have mean nothing?”
Well, that was a sobering and humbling thought. That outside of what the Lord knew would be best for me, there would be no favour for me to succeed even though Pride often pushed me to flirt with the thought that I could.
“What if, apart from the purpose I have called you to, the gifts and talents you think you have mean nothing?”
Lisa TerKeurst writes in her book, Uninvited,
“When we abide, delight and dwell in Him, He then places within us desires that line up with His best desire for us. Therefore, He can give us whatever we ask, because we will only want what’s consistent with His best. He can full satisfy our hearts, because they are consistent with His heart. He can promise us stability, because we’re tapped into His consistent power. This is the fullness of the person who can truly live loved.”
True story.
Although there are days where the romance and allure of what’s outside may look shinier, and I will still struggle with table conversations at weddings, parties and Chinese New Year, facing the pitiful or disapproving looks from friends and relatives … I am exactly where I know I’m supposed to be.
And that is more than enough for now.
