and now we fall into this grasp of cold – 
of white and black, and never ending night.
It’s here again, but so am I. So bold
to face the winter’s snow, to win the fight.

Ever since I moved to the northwest I have dealt with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). I grew up in a much warmer climate. In my hometown, I could still refer to “the day that it snowed” and they would know that I was talking about a specific day in January almost 30 years ago. While I have lived in the northwest long enough to have gotten used to the ice and snow, a snowy day still heightens my anxiety. As I walk to work each morning in the dark, as I turn on the heater in my office, as I sit behind my desk, I find a deep lack of passion and motivation to do the work set before me. Those who have experienced depression will know that the problem is not so much not wanting to work, it is not wanting to do anything at all.

Yet here I am on another midwinter morning. The sun has not yet risen. But I sit behind my desk, tapping on the computer keys, preparing for a day of work. I have a board meeting tonight, calls to make, a passage of scripture to study. In other times of the year, a day like today would feel simple enough. Today it feels like a mountain to climb. Yet I will do it – not because of passion but because of vocation.

I do not do the work of pastoral ministry because I am passionate about it (this is not to say that I do not have passion for my work). I do not do this work because I find it enjoyable and life-giving (though there are many times in which I find joy and life in ministry). I do this work for one simple reason: I have been called to do it. God has called me to pastor in this time and this place. I could be like Jonah and run from that call. But the story of Jonah reminds us that running from God is a fool’s errand. Thus, I find my motivation to work today, not from within, but from without. I plod along not for myself but for the God who called me.

This has become a kind of watchword for me: “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction”. The quote comes from Nietzsche, but has been popularized by Eugene Peterson. 

“Friedrich Nietzsche, who saw this area of spiritual truth at least with great clarity, wrote, ‘The essential thing “in heaven and earth” is…that there should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.’ It is this ‘long obedience in the same direction’ which the mood of the world does so much to discourage” (Peterson, Eugene H. 2000. A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. Illinois: Intervarsity Press. Pg. 17)

Our culture says that we should work because of passion, we should only do that which we “authentically” want to do. We praise energy, excitement, ardor. We like the speed that comes from intense effort. But these things, while perhaps helpful in their time, will not get us very far in either the spiritual life or vocational work. Plodding is not sexy, but it takes us further than passion can. We keep taking each step as it comes, continuing in the same direction, obeying the One who called.

I may not be “feeling it” today – but here I am.

“Often have they attacked me from my youth
    —let Israel now say—
often have they attacked me from my youth,
    yet they have not prevailed against me.”
Psalm 129 (NRSV)