The End of Passion: Part 2 of 2

If you’re very, very clever, you might have deduced that The Wife of Leisure is one result of my theorizing on gifts and passions. 

Dropping my acting agent, having babies who sleep very well during the day, and finishing grad school in a terrible job market left me with a lot of NCIS reruns to watch.  Cookie and I concluded that my eternal purpose was, possibly, not best achieved through mind-numbing Mark Harmon marathons. 

“Write! Sing!” cried Cookie.  And thus a website was born.  (Yes, it’ll hold my music too one fine day.)

What, then, is the end of this pursuit?  If I’ve identified my passions (simple) and found outside corroboration that there is a corresponding talent (less simple), then where does it lead?

This is best addressed in the negative, in what its aim is not.  Its aim is not financial gain, although such is never unappreciated.  Its aim is not success in a worldly sense, or acclaim, which are nice, but have their own ego-pitfalls.  Any of these may be in God’s design to His own end, but I can safely assume God is not interested in me owning Manolo Blahniks or becoming a household name for my own sake.

Most importantly in my field, it’s not about being right.

If you write opinion, you have to substantiate your claims.  You have to sound rational.  You have to have evidence.  But if you write about Bibley stuff, you have to provide evidence not to win the argument or beat down your opponent, but to point to God.

This doesn’t stop me from thinking in terms of money or reputation or self-righteousness.  It means that when I do think this way, it must lead me to pray over my argument.  It should lead us to pray over all our areas of gift/passion convergence—that in their development we should keep our goals on track.

In the end, fulfillment comes when our strategically allotted gifts and desires are polished into a platform on which God is made glorious.