Joy and Obedience and Songwriting

I wrote a couple songs today with some great guys. I’ve been co-writing a lot this month and enjoyed it immensely. I’ve kept a pad of paper by my bed lately because of all the song ideas that keep popping up in my groggy half awake self. I got home today and all I wanted to talk about was the songs I wrote, I couldn’t wait to play them for my husband. Today we worked through lunch and I didn’t even notice. And normally I’m irritable and unproductive if I’m hungry.

People say different things about finding your “calling”. Finding the thing you were made to do. Or things.

I’m often conflicted by what the message of our culture is on this subject, and what the message of the bible is. The quote in my Real Simple magazine this month goes like this:

“We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.”
-E.B. White

That resonates with me. Pretty deeply. But then that starts to feel self-serving and I think of verses like this in the bible:

..and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 10:38-39

It’s like something in me thinks that I should be moderately miserable as a sign that I’m following God’s will. What shady theology is that?? I know that is not what Jesus meant there, but somewhere along the way I started believing that He did.

surly those two concepts can coincide.

In jr. high I had a poster on my wall of an elephant standing on a beach ball. The quote underneath it said “The key to life is balance.”

I don’t think at the time I realized how true that really is...