Evotional.com - Mark Batterson

Start a Career: Pursue Your Passions
07.01.05
Pastor Mark Batterson

This evotional continues The Game of Life series. Next week we'll talk about falling in love. This week's stop is start a career and we're focusing on pursuing your passions. You can also subscribe to this evotional or Pastor Mark's podcast @ http://www.theaterchurch.com/.

Starwars

Probably one of my most vivid memories from childhood was walking out of a movie theater in Alexandria, Minnesota after watching Star Wars as an eight year-old kid. I was in shock. I was in awe. I can't even put into words the way the music and the characters and the plot impacted me. I'll never have another movie experience like that as long as I live.

Last week, I watched the American Film Institute awards and George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, received the Lifetime Achievement Award. He said something that struck me: "I'm grateful that I discovered my passion." Me too!

I know that on one level, a movie like Star Wars only adds entertainment value to our lives (although I would argue that it inspires imagination which is part of the image of God). And I'm not suggesting that my life would be significantly devalued if George Lucas hadn't pursued his passion and Star Wars never came into existence. But I couldn't help but connect the dots. At the end of the day, it is the pursuit of passion that will impact people. Millions of people have been entertained because one man pursued his passion. Add Christ to the equation and you've got a formula for success in the kingdom of God.

For what it's worth, no one was more passionate than Jesus. In fact, the final chapter of his life is called The Passion. That's why one of my core convictions is that Christ followers ought to be the most passionate people on the planet. Pursuing our passions is not a luxury. It's a stewardship issue. We're called to manage our God-given passions just like we're called to manage our time and talent and treasure.

The word enthusiasm comes from two Greek words: en and Theos which mean "in God." So the more we get into God and the more of God we get into us, the more passionate we become! For what it's worth, the fourth Lateran council of 1215 accused the Franciscans of "excessive enthusiasm." We ought to be guilty as charged. I think that is one thing that sets a relationship with Christ apart from religion. Most world religions are focused on the elimination of desire. The ultimate goal of Buddhism is to exist without desire. The goal of a relationship with Christ is the exact opposite. John Eldredge says, "Jesus provokes desire; he awakens it; he heightens it."

In too many instances, spiritual maturity has been reduced to information-the transfer of knowledge. I'm not saying that isn't important. It is. God doesn't want half our mind. He wants our right brain and left brain. But I think spiritual maturity has as much to do with transforming the heart as it does informing the mind. It's not just accumulated knowledge but changed desires. Spiritual maturity is wanting what God wants. In his book, Uprising, Erwin McManus says, "When you make God your primary passion, He transforms all the passions of your heart." And he says that passions become "the best compass for your spiritual journey."

So here's the deal. It doesn't matter whether it's making movies or raising kids or passing legislation or teaching classes or starting businesses or managing accounts or writing articles or selling gizmos. Are you doing what you're passionate about? If you didn't get paid to do what you do, would you still want to do it?

100,000 Hours

According to Stephen Graves and Thomas Addington, the average person will spend half their waking hours at work. Over the course of their lifetime, that person will work 100,000 hours. If that is depressing, you probably aren't pursuing your passions. If that is exciting, you probably are.

Here's the bottom line: the game of life is too short to spend half your waking hours doing something you don't enjoy. Or maybe I should say that the game of life is too long to spend half your waking hours doing something you don't enjoy.

Don't get me wrong. There are seasons where all of us get stuck doing something we don't enjoy. You don't like your hours. You don't like your boss. Or you don't like your prospects. But those can be incredible seasons of growth if we redeem them. I've learned some of my greatest lessons in the most difficult of circumstances. And those unenjoyable jobs help us enjoy our passions even more once we're pursuing them. I didn't particularly like working as a ditch digger in my early twenties. It was back-breaking work. But it helps me appreciate what I do now!

I can honestly say that I wouldn't want to be anywhere else doing anything else. I have my fair share of problems. My life can be frustrating and stressful. And I have terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days sometimes. But sometimes I feel like the luckiest person alive because I get to do what I love to do. I get to spend my days doing what I'd do even if I didn't get paid to do it. I think that's the goal. Most of us don't start there. And you don't get there overnight. But that is the direction we ought to be facing. That is where all of us would and could and should end up if we pursue our God-given passions.

I remember reading a sobering survey a few years ago. It claimed that 89% of Americans don't enjoy what they do for a living and it cited two primary reasons. Their jobs didn't match their gifts-what they do best. And their jobs didn't match their passions-what they love most.

In their book, Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton cite a Gallup poll that found that only 20% of Americans feel like their strengths are in play every day. I just don't think that's good stewardship! If those surveys are correct, then eight out of ten or nine out of ten people aren't pursuing their passions.

So how do you discover your passions? How do you nurture them and pursue them? This evotional tries to answer those questions, but let me make an observation up front.

I think one huge challenge that twenty-somethings face is the sheer quantity of occupational options. You can easily experience paralysis by analysis. According to the U.S. Dictionary of Occupational Titles, there are 20,000 different job options in the United States. That is a blessing and a curse.

A hundred years ago, it was virtually assumed that you would do what your parents did. But we live in a unique era of history in a unique society where we're free to pursue our passions. But as Warren Bennis says in his book, Geeks & Geezers, we're "smothered in possibilities." I think some twenty-somethings feel like they are drowning in an ocean of options! Let me throw you a life preserver. You don't have to know what you want to do for the rest of your life by the time you turn thirty! You might want to read that again.

The truth is that we ought to be dreaming new dreams and pursuing new passions until the day we die!

The third decade of life is about trying your hand at new things and figuring out what you're passionate about. And part of the process of discovering what you like to do is discovering what you don't like to do. You may feel like you've wasted your college major because you don't want to pursue that path. You may feel like you've been spinning your wheels in a dead-end job. You may feel like you've wasted valuable years doing something you don't enjoy. But part of discovering who you are is discovering who you're not. Part of discovering what you want to do is discovering what you don't want to do. Those false starts and dead ends can be catalysts in the process of pursuing your passions!

I'm eternally grateful that I tried my hand at politics in my early twenties. It scratched an itch. And it helped prepare me to pastor National Community Church. More than half of our congregation works in the political arena.

I'm eternally grateful that I tried my hand at parachurch ministry in my mid-twenties. My first ministry position out of graduate school was directing an upstart ministry called The Urban Bible Training Center. The UBTC was all about bringing an education into the inner-city for anyone who couldn't get out of the inner-city to get an education. I enjoyed it for the most part. I poured my heart into it. I traveled and raised a budget for the ministry. And I even dreamed of an inner-city college at one point. But I discovered that it wasn't a perfect fit for me. It wasn't my niche.

Those weren't wasted years. They were part of my education. Those weren't detours. They were stepping stones that God used to get me to where I am now. God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time. Here's the catch. The right place at the right time often feels like the wrong place at the wrong time. Here's another way of saying it: sometimes you need to get a job as a cupbearer in Babylon in order to pursue your passion of rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. Enter a twenty-something named Nehemiah.

Breadcrumbs

I think Nehemiah is the patron saint of pursuing your passions. The book of Nehemiah is his memoir or autobiography or blog. Nehemiah looks back over his life and reveals what was going through his head and through his heart when as he pursued his passions. And almost like Hansel and Gretel who left a trail of breadcrumbs, Nehemiah shows us how to pursue our God-given passions the way He pursued his.

Let me give you the historical backdrop so this story makes sense. In 586 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah and took many of the Jewish survivors as captives back to Babylon. In 538 BC, about 43,000 returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel. In 458 BC, another remnant of about 1800 returned with Ezra. Nehemiah is the sequel to those stories. The defining moment of his life happens in 445 BC.

I was at the fortress of Susa. Hanani, one of my brothers, came to visit me with some men who had just arrived from Judah. I asked them about the Jews who had survived the captivity and about how things were going in Jerusalem. They said to me, "Things are not going well for those who returned to the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is torn down, and the gates have been burned." When I heard these things I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed to the God of heaven.

I had a professor in grad school that posed a great question: "What makes you cry or pound your fist on the table?" If you want to discover your passion, you need to identify what makes you sad or what makes you mad. Or to put it in biblical context, what makes you feel like turning over some tables? That's what Jesus did in John 2. Jesus was going up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. I'm sure the disciples thought it was going to be a routine Passover, but Jesus turned the Temple upside-down. He didn't kneel to pray. He pulled out a whip, started a stampede, and turned over some tables. By the time he was done, it looked like a bar room brawl had just happened. And Jesus was the only one left standing!

I think Dorothy Sayers is right: :"To do them justice, the people who crucified Jesus did not do so because he was a bore. Quite the contrary; he was too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have declawed the lion of Judah and made him a housecat for pale priests and pious old ladies."

The Voice of Gladness

If you want to pursue your passion, you've got to identify what makes you mad or sad. But most importantly, you've got to identify what makes you glad. Frederick Buechner said it best. "The voice we should listen to most as we choose a vocation is the voice that we might think we should listen to least, and that is the voice of our own gladness. What can we do that makes us the gladdest? I believe that if it is a thing that makes us truly glad, then it is a good thing and it is our thing."

Let me take you all the way back to Genesis 1:31. Six times in the first chapter of Genesis there is a phrase repeated: "And God saw that it was good." Then in Genesis 1:31 it says, "And God saw all that He had made, and it was very good." The word "good" comes from the Hebrew, towb, which means "to delight." It's almost like God finishes his work, steps back from the canvass, and smiles at the work of his hands! "I outdid myself again!" Like an artist at the unveiling of magnum opus, God delights in what he sees. He finds joy in work. God has 100% job satisfaction. In so doing, He models something for us. He wants us to delight in what we do and do what we delight in.

A few centuries ago, there was a tradition within the church that asked the question, "Did you take pleasure in it?" to determine whether or not something was sinful. What a terrible test. God wouldn't pass the test!

Psalm 37:4 is one of my touchstone passages. It says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." The word "give" means "to conceive." In other words, when we're living for God's glory, new desires are conceived in us. God literally downloads new desires into our heart until we want what God wants!

Too many people take the wrong approach to discovering their passions. They try to figure out what to do instead of trying to figure out who they are. They allow what they do to define them. It's tough not to when the first question people ask us after they learn our names is: what do you do? But what you do should not define who you are. Who you are should define what you do!

The Moment of Conception

The moment of conception is an amazing miracle. A sperm penetrates an egg and all the genetic data that will determine who that person becomes is encoded within that single cell. Is anything more miraculous?

Conception begins a nine-month process of gestation. The mother's body starts producing hormones before she even knows she's pregnant. The heart starts beating on Day 22. In four weeks, that single cell has grown 10,000 times larger! On day 42, the first neuron is formed and 120 days later a baby will have a hundred billion of them. That's nearly 10,000 new synapses per second! And all of that development happens before a baby is even born!

Sometimes I daydream about who my kids will become. How will their personalities develop? Who will they marry? Will they have kids? What passions will they pursue? What dreams will become reality? What kind of legacy will they leave? I am believing God for big things. Every parent should.

But the amazing thing to me is that everything my kids become can all be traced back to a moment of conception. All of us were once single cells.

What does that have to do with passion?

I think passions begin as a single cell. Something gets conceived in your spirit. Something makes you mad or sad or glad. Passion is conceived, but there is a gestation period. If you don't nurture the passion, there is a spiritual miscarriage. A passion dies in the womb. It never comes to full-term.

There is a moment of conception in Nehemiah 1:3. Nehemiah hears about the wall of Jerusalem and it causes him to cry. Those tears watered his passion, but it was mourning and fasting and praying that kept the dream alive. Prayer is a passion incubator. The more we pray the more passionate we become. When we pray our convictions grow deeper and our dreams grow bigger. It's that simple. There are eight references to prayer in the book of Nehemiah and those eight references are the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Nehemiah prays like it depends on God. That is half of pursuing your passions. The other half is working like it depends on you.

Overnight Success

Pursuing your passions is an exercise in patience. Passion is what helps us keep on keeping on. It is a relentless unwillingness to give up on our dreams.

When I was twenty-six years-old I started dreaming about building a coffeehouse on Capitol Hill. I'll never forget walking by a dilapidated, graffiti-covered building on the corner of 2nd and F Streets, NE. But I didn't see what it was. I saw what it could become! I started praying that God would give us that piece of property. I did Jericho walks around the property. When we purchased the adjacent row house, I used to lay hands on the abutting walls staking claim to it.

To make a long story short, after eight years of praying and planning, the dream is becoming reality! The only thing that enabled us to persevere through the rezoning and historic preservation process was our passion. Our passion to build a first-class, fully-operational coffeehouse where the church and community could cross paths fueled our efforts. Otherwise we would have run out of gas.

When it comes to pursuing you passions you've got to take the long view. I like the way Bill Gates said it. "Most of us overestimate what we can accomplish in two years and underestimate what we can accomplish in ten years."

Sam Walton, the founder of the Wal-Mart Empire, had a great perspective on success. A reporter once asked him how he achieved "overnight success." Sam Walton said, "It took twenty years to become an overnight success."

It may seem insignificant, but notice the timeline in Nehemiah. The passion is conceived in the month of Kislev. But Nehemiah is in a holding pattern for several months. The opportunity to pursue his passion doesn't open up until the month of Nisan. But Nehemiah is watching and waiting for his divine appointment.

Writing is one of my passions. I feel as called to write as I do to pastor. But it took thirteen years for that dream to become reality. I can't tell you how many manuscripts never made it to full-term during my twenties. To be perfectly honest, the passion became a burden. I felt frustrated. I felt unfulfilled. And it felt like the pressure got stronger and stronger until something was about to blow. But I hung in there. I finally self-published my first book, ID: The True You, in the fall of 2004.

It took me thirteen years to tie off the umbilical cord on my first book. My second manuscript (which is currently being shopped to publishers) only took three months. My goal is to write five books in 2005 and I'm halfway there. It was my passion to write that gave me the perseverance to hang on to a dream for thirteen years.

Crazy Ideas

As far as we know, Nehemiah had never been to Jerusalem. There was no Wallbuilding 101 class on his transcript. And there weren't any construction jobs on his resume. He had zero qualifications. He had no experience and no education. And that is precisely why I love Nehemiah. Rebuilding the wall in Jerusalem was a crazy idea. Most passions are!

I look back on my life and it's the crazy ideas that have gotten me to where I am. Giving up a full-ride scholarship at the University of Chicago was a crazy idea. Packing all of our belonging into a Uhaul truck and moving to DC with no place to live and no guaranteed salary was a crazy idea. A church meeting in movie theaters @ metro stops was a crazy idea. Buying a run down, ranshackled building at the corner of 2nd and F streets and turning it into a coffeehouse on Capitol Hill was a crazy idea.

Thank God for crazy ideas!

One of my favorite interviews in Finding the Open Road was Mason Gordon, the guy who invented Slamball. Have you ever seen Slamball? It's basically basketball on trampolines. It's crazy! He basically invented a new sport. And like the authors of Finding the Open Road said: "Nobody does that. That's like inventing a new facial expression or flavor of meatloaf. But Mason came up with an insane idea that he totally loved." Gordon went to his boss and his boss said, "You can't launch a new sport nowadays, but what you can do is get something on TV. And if you can get something on TV, then you can back your way into the traditional sports model." It was a Eureka moment. Gordon put "blinders" on and just ran with his idea. "After a lot of hard work, I went from just this goofy idea on a napkin to a national broadcast deal eighteen months later."

I think normality is over-rated. I agree with Ron Rolheiser's take on the Holy Spirit in Against an Infinite Horizon: "Isn't it the task of the Holy Spirit to introduce some madness and intoxication into the world? Why this propensity for balance and safety? Don't we all long for one moment of raw risk, one moment of divine madness?"

I'm not sure where "cupbearer" ranked on the Babylonian org chart, but Nehemiah worked at the White House. There were perks and privileges that were part and parcel of working for the administration. He had job security. But Nehemiah had to make a choice between a job and a passion. He took a raw risk and decided to pursue his God-given passion. That is the choice all of us must make. And it always involves a little divine madness!

I love the way Paulo Coelho describes it in his novel The Alchemist. There is a poignant scene where Santiago, the shepherd boy, has to make a decision that will determine his destiny. He has to choose between tending his flock in Spain and searching for buried treasure in Egypt.

Here I am, between my flock and my treasure, the boy thought. He had to choose between something he had become accustomed to and something he wanted to have.

All of us stand between our flock and our treasure. All of us must choose between those things we've become accustomed to and those things God is calling us to. And there is always a moment of truth when we must choose to pursue our passions or allow them to die a slow, painful death.

Nehemiah was scared to death. Nehemiah 2:2 says, "I was very much afraid." But Nehemiah hands in his resignation. He decides to change careers. He is still a thousand miles away from his dream, but he's moving in the right direction.

Changing majors or changing careers can be an agonizing decision. Someone will think you're crazy! But if you aren't willing to look foolish you're foolish! Noah had to feel foolish going into the boat building business, but that seems to be par for the course. Scripture is full of crazy career changes! A shepherd named David becomes king. A farmer named Elisha becomes a prophet. A bunch of fisherman become Apostles. My personal favorite is the body builder named Samson who becomes a Judge. Can you imagine a body builder becoming a governor of state, say California for example? And, of course, there is the carpenter who went into ministry when he turned thirty!

Textbook

I had a thought last week. One of the mistakes we make in the way we approach Scripture is reading it like a textbook instead of a storybook. We miss the drama because we're looking for the formula. We forget that the Bible is about real people with real doubts and fears and frustrations. We don't take time to really think about what was going through their minds. We don't feel what they felt. We underestimate how tough it was for them to make the same decisions we agonize over. Part of the reason is that we know how each story ends! We don't feel the stress or suspense or shock.

One key to understanding Scripture is entering the story. Saint Ignatius called it imaginative meditation.

I'm headed back to the cow pasture in Alexandria, Minnesota where I felt called to ministry in a couple weeks. That personal pilgrimage prompted some thoughts I'd never had before, but I think they exemplify imaginative meditation.

I wonder if Paul ever went back to mile marker on the Road to Damascus where he was knocked off his horse and blinded by a bolt of lightning. Did Peter ever row out to that spot on the Sea of Galilee where he walked on water? Did Zacchaeus ever climb the sycamore tree as an old man and relive his first meeting with Jesus? Did the paralyzed man ever climb up on the rooftop where his four friends lowered him down? Did Jesus ever visit Golgotha after his resurrection?

There are sub-plots and subtle dynamics that we totally miss because we read the Bible like a textbook instead of storybook. We assume that Jesus would go into ministry. But we don't really think about what was happening in his head and his heart.

Did Jesus have a hard time giving up carpentry? I think Jesus loved working with his hands. And I'm guessing he was good at what he did. Dorothy Sayers said, "No crooked table legs or ill-fitted drawers ever, I dare say, came out of the carpenter's shop in Nazareth."

Was there an element of fear as Jesus transitioned from carpentry to ministry? I don't know anybody who isn't afraid of the unknown. Did Jesus feel pressure to stay in the family business? According to some scholars, Joseph died when Jesus was a teenager or twenty-something. Did Jesus feel pressured to stay in carpentry to financially provide for his family since he was the oldest son?

One thing is for sure. His siblings thought he was crazy! At one point, according to Mark 3:21, they went to take charge of Jesus because they thought he was "out of his mind."

What I'm saying is this: we underestimate the relational and emotional and financial dynamics that went into Jesus changing careers when he turned thirty.

Jerusalem or Bust

Crazy ideas usually require crazy actions! On paper, it made no sense for a cupbearer in Babylon to hand in his resignation so he could rebuild a wall in Jerusalem. But that is exactly what Nehemiah did. He didn't have a plan. He didn't have the financing. But he knew that he couldn't live a thousand miles away from his passion. It was Jerusalem or bust.

When Mike Lazzo was a twenty-something he didn't plan on becoming senior vice president of programming for the Cartoon Network. The Cartoon Network didn't even exist then. His father worked in a textile factory, but Mike couldn't bear the thought of spending the next forty years of his life doing that. What he really wanted to do was watch TV. "It dawned on me that maybe I'd just get a job in the mailroom at a television network. I thought it was important for me to be close to my natural interest."

Mike got a job at Turner Broadcasting Network in Atlanta and started delivering mail. He said, "Delivering mail turned out to be the best job in the world because I got to know everyone at the company." To make a long story short, Mike eventually got paid to watch TV and have an opinion about it. But it started with a job in the mailroom.

Mike Lazzo said, "There is always something-that thing you would do for no money. Identify that and you've found your perfect job, if you're willing to work at it. My ability to work hard definitely helped me, but natural interest is what keeps people getting out of bed."

Most people don't hit the passion bullseye on their first vocational attempt. It usually takes a few tries. But the key is getting close to your natural or supernatural interests.

One of the most insightful interviews in Finding the Open Road is with Pat O'Donnell, the CEO of Aspen Skiing Company. He said, "I think it's normal to be confused about where to go." I think he's right. Pat didn't know what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, but he knew that he loved climbing so he decided to pursue his passions. He moved to Yosemite Park and took a job as a bellman making ninety cents an hour. He worked from 7 AM to 3 PM which gave him about six hours of daylight to climb. O'Donnell said, "Yosemite is just a metaphor for whatever you want to do."

You may not know exactly what you want to do yet. And that's fine. My advice is this: get close to the right people and the right things. Joshua got close to Moses. When Elijah offered Elisha an internship, Elisha burned his plowing equipment and slaughtered his oxen! The disciples dropped their nets to get close to Jesus. Get as close as you can to wherever or whatever or whoever you're passionate about.

Nehemiah was a thousand miles away from his passion. I don't think he knew what he'd do once he got to Jerusalem. But he knew he had to get there. He knew he had to move in the direction of his passion.

You may feel like you're a thousand miles away from your passion. As the old aphorism says: the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. It may take months or years or decades to close the gap, but until you can honestly say you wouldn't want to be anywhere else doing anything else you've got to keep pursuing your passion.

Be the Best Cupbearer you can be

In the meantime, here is my advice: do the best you can with what you have where you are! How you handle your current opportunities will determine the doors that open up down the road. Give every job everything you've got. Be the best cupbearer you can be!

Don't whine. Don't complain. Don't check out. If your job isn't very exciting, then bring some excitement to the job. One of the greatest acts of worship is to do a good job at something you don't want to do. So if you have a bad job do a good job at that bad job. It was Nehemiah's track record that set up his big break.

Nehemiah 2:4 says, "I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before, so the king asked me, 'Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of the heart'."

If Nehemiah had checked out or copped an attitude then the king would have thought to himself, "Nehemiah is having another bad day." But it's the fact that Nehemiah did the best he could with what he had where he was that set up this opportunity. It was his good performance day in and day out that caused the king to notice that he was sad.

King David spent his twenties tending sheep and hiding out in caves. He didn't want to be doing either of those things! But they were the proving ground. And a proving ground usually paves the way to pursue our passions.

I have a simple goal: I want to die doing what I love to do.

George Burns said, "I'd rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate."

Me too!