There’s a downside to having a job you love.
I typed those words two months ago, not knowing how quickly things would change. And it wasn’t just because of COVID-19.
Things changed because there is an inconvenient perk to having a job you love.
For two years, I managed, edited, and wrote for the blog at YWAM Furnace here in New Zealand. I discovered how passionate I am about storytelling and sharing testimonies from the mission field.
In short, I love what I did.
But I realized there is a downside to having a job you’re passionate about. Although I’ve loved blogging for a decade, I took way less time to do it personally. Since I was blogging for a Christian ministry, it was easy to spiritualize it. “Oh, I’m writing for Jesus,” I reasoned.
But I ignored that God could be speaking to me in my personal writing, too. So when I finally took the time to be creative “off the clock”—not only did I enjoy it, but it also inspired someone to write a beautiful post for our YWAM blog, too.
Everything was going great.
Then I decided to leave.
It didn’t make sense, really. I had a job I was passionate about—in a community of people I loved deeply. I had learned to make time for personal creativity and was thriving in my corporate ministry.
But as Henry Drummond, a 19th-century pastor, wrote:
God’s will is always an uncommon thing. People think it is commonplace; the doctrine is, very. But the man who interprets into action will find himself doing strange things.
Strange things, indeed.
When I started writing this I wanted to tell you my previous post was NOT the reason I left. But reflecting back, “having a job I loved” had more to do with it than I wanted to admit.
This is why.
The perk of having a job you love is that you want to keep doing it.
The inconvenience of having a job you love?
Passion doesn’t always like to stay put.
It’s unruly—especially when it’s given space to breathe.
And as my YWAM Furnace leaders and team members continued to champion me, encourage me, and give me space to do what I am passionate about—my passion started doing strange things. Like speaking. Moving. Wriggling. Stretching.
Reminding me of dreams I’ve had since I was five years old.
So, the inconvenient perk of having a job you love is that you might not stay there.
But that’s never the end of the story.
Photo: Laken Gillard Photography
