I want to accept my lot, but that means I have to give up something.

How Ecclesiastes 5.18-20 helps us identify the underlying logic of desire and what we can do about it.

I really enjoy what I do.

As I write this, I am sitting in a hotel lobby in Wichita, preparing for a meeting and concluding a few days of intensive work planning for the first cohort of The Companion: Apprenticeship in Spiritual Direction, a spiritual director training program at Friends University. I get to work on this with two good friends. I get to build something, and I get to teach. I get to lead a new initiative that will hopefully shape innumerable lives through the impact of our students. While it’s hard to be away from family, I truly love the work I get to do.

But, and this is a hard confession, I also always want more. There is a pathology in my soul that leads me to cast my vision on the next thing even as I am still building the current thing. I am always on the lookout for opportunities, and while that is generally framed as a positive aspect of the ministry gig economy here in the US, I find it both exhausting and strangely energizing. There’s a momentum to it, sure. But…