In not Of [flip-flop factor]

“When we start being too impressed by the results of our work, we slowly come to the erroneous conviction that life is one large scoreboard where someone is listing the points to measure our worth. That means we are not only in the world, but also of the world.”
-Henri Nouwen

“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”
-Jesus

My struggle in life has always been related to my career or my vocation. Better said, my ability to make money with my career or vocation. I’m a jazz drummer at heart. I love the freedom of expression in jazz music primarily because it requires knowing your instrument inside-and-out AND at the same time, forgetting everything you know so that you can actually be creative, spontaneous and improvise music with other musicians. It’s a paradox and making music like this is extremely invigorating to me. This is a passion of mine or a calling of sorts.

Most of my drumming career, I’ve had to make money by working odd jobs. One could say that I supported my ‘drumming habit’ by working a day job. They didn’t tell me about this reality when I was doing my undergraduate degree AND my masters degree in music. This lack of information created an illusion for me. The illusion that I should be paid for making music and being creative and worse, it created in me a thought process that the world owed me something. That is not a healthy disposition for being creative.

After encountering Jesus, I had a complete identity crisis. Things changed and it has taken little bit of time to fully understand how they changed. When I encountered Jesus, I felt a different calling: a calling to serve Him in some capacity. I still loved to play drums, but I enjoy talking with people about Jesus more. Without any initiative on my part, I ended up spending 6 years of my life on staff at two different churches as a worship leader. My calling (or passion) was now my vocation.

At first it seemed to be the ideal situation, combining my love for Jesus and my love for music – it made sense. But, what makes sense in this world is often not the Kingdom of God. My last staff position, I found that I was more passionate about teaching a small group and spending time with people one-on-one than I was about actually leading people in worship. My passion (or calling) was changing, but my vocation remained the same. But, that wasn’t the end.

While on staff at the second church, I was offered the job of playing drums with a Christian singer/songwriter. This would involved traveling and not being on staff at the church. Over the course of a year, I transitioned off of staff at the church and eventually began working full-time for this singer/songwriter. I play drums and then handle all the logistics for the band as the acting road manager.

I call this the flip-flop factor because things really did flip around in my life. Now, I make my money playing drums and although I’m passionate about it, I’m not nearly as passionate about this part of my life as I am about teaching and mentoring people in their walk with Jesus.

My vocation is playing drums and making music. This is my career and I get paid for doing this. Although it was once my primary passion it is now ancillary when compared to my calling. In this way, I am IN this world. However, my calling is to be a teacher and pastor. This is my passion and I do not expect to make money doing this. I don’t want to. In this way, I am not OF this world.

How do you balance these two areas of your life?

You don’t.

Balance is to those of this world, what integrate is to those NOT of this world. Balance implies that there is something practical about following Jesus and that seems to have an ‘either-or’ scenario. However, to integrate, that would be the beginning of synthesizing these two areas of life. It would be a ‘both-and’ scenario.

So we are IN the world, but not OF the world. We are called to be 100% in both our vocation and our calling. This freedom is available to us so that we can find satisfaction in productivity and yet not be consumed by it. So that we can contribute without feeling something is owed to us – because freely we have received and freely we give.

Right?