Recently, my wife and I received $1500 from a couple in our church, which will enable us to go on a ten-day study trip to Jerusalem. Without this gift, we would miss out on a valuable learning opportunity. Receiving such a gift from people you hardly know is humbling.

And it is in moments like these that I reflect on the blessings and dangers of money. As a poor seminary couple with over $40,000 of college debt, who are trying to pay for seminary without taking out any other loans, we don’t have money lying around. I hate debt, even "good" debt like student loans.

I’ve come to realize I should dwell less on the debt and more on my attitude towards our debt and money. But I still struggle.

When I learned a friend from high school—who never graduated from college—is pulling in six figures while we are scraping by, I felt my heart fill with covetousness. I also struggle with the desire for the American dream: a beautiful, large house in the suburbs (excellent toys included) where my wife and I can raise a family. But here we are renting, not buying, excellent toys and not putting money into a mortgage.

My soul is torn between the desire for great wealth and the desire to serve Christ, come wealth or poverty. I wish I could claim with Paul that “I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little” (Philippians 4:12, NLT).

Though sometimes at odds with my capitalistic brain, the gospel of Mark states true discipleship is impossible if we are focused on gaining and holding onto great wealth. Jesus explained in the Parable of the Seeds that the seeds that fell on the thorny ground are like those “who hear God’s word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life, the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things, so no fruit is produced” (Mark 4:18-19, NLT).

Later in Mark, a man questioned Jesus about how he could inherit eternal life. Jesus clearly told the man he must sell his possessions, give his money to the poor, and then follow him. The man went away sad because he was wealthy (Mark 10:17-22). This story exemplifies how wealth gets in the way of following Jesus.

So then, how do I make sure money doesn’t get in the way of following Jesus? My wife and I try to take every extra dollar and pay back our loans. We are paying off the smaller loans with the higher interest first and will work our way to the lower interest loans. So we can move to Seattle and begin a church plant, we are also trying to put some money away. And even if it is not much, we also give to our church and special needs, like the tsunami victims through World Vision.

I try not to worry too much about money while my wife tries to worry a little more. And when the Lord provides money through our jobs, we try not to spend the money on frivolous things, though sometimes we fail. Also, I try to educate myself on money, using website such as www.fool.com, a vital resource for every money matter imaginable.

I pray that someday I will be able to completely let go of that seductive pot of gold. I pray that I can wrench from my clenched fist the need to be as wealthy as my friend from high school. The couple who gave us the $1500 has learned to live uncorrupted by great wealth. They showed by their generous gift that the “plenty” the Lord has provided them is not their own.

I pray that we learn now, in our limited seminary budget, how to live with hearts free from the love of money so that when we come into the big bucks of full-time ministry we will know how to handle it.

t’s just as important as the extraordinary.

Are you waiting for a burning bush? To be swallowed by a whale? A vision or dream? Any supernatural experience through which God expressly reveals to you where and how he wants you to serve?

According to Os Guinness, author of The Call, few people experience a supernatural call, though every believer is called. In a recent interview, Guinness elucidated what it means to be called and how you know whether to stay the course in seminary.

How do you understand the concept of calling?
I subscribe to the idea of calling that “When God calls us in Jesus—Follow me—all that we are, all that we do, and all that we have gain a direction and a dynamism because they are a response to his summons.”

But there is a difference between the ordinary calling of all believers to follow Him and the extraordinary call where God directly, supernaturally, and expressly speaks to people through a word or vision to have them do what He wants them to do.

The first is for everybody; the second is not. The trouble comes because extraordinary callings are usually dramatic and exciting, so they make good stories for pastors and others to tell. Then what happens is that the experience of the minority becomes the expectation of the majority. People then feel that if they don’t have such a dramatic calling, they don’t have a calling at all—so they sit around, pray, and wait for the word or the voice. That’s a terrible fallacy, so there’s a lot of confusion and ignorance surrounding the notion of calling, all of which ministers could begin to solve with better teaching.

So we've lost the Reformation's biblical sense of calling?
Yes, in our ignorance and confusion we tend to reserve the word calling for spiritual callings for the ministry or for “full time service.” We expect ministers to be called but not investment bankers.

The real challenge is for ministers to recognize their calling and that part of their calling is to empower lay people in their callings out in the secular world. Ministers need to teach their congregations that calling is for everyone. For lawyers it is in law. For homemakers it is in the home. For scientists it is in science, and so on.

Is it healthy for people to think of going to seminary to discern God’s call?
On one hand, there are positive aspects. Good seminaries give people a biblical and theological literacy. They also give them a “time out” to think through their faith and Christian worldview in greater depth.

However, there are also negative sides. Many go to seminary because they think the spiritual is higher and more valuable than the secular. I call it the "seminary trap," and I advise people not to go to seminary unless they are so positive it is right that they cannot not go. There are so many illusions about seminary and “fulltime Christian work.” Many go for the wrong reasons, and many are diverted from their real callings in the secular world.

How do you counsel individuals who are struggling with going into full-time ministry?
First, I make sure they are not falling for the seminary trap. Then I talk to them about calling as I would talk to anyone. The way to discover your calling is to line up certain things about who you are, and what your natural and your spiritual gifts are. A lot of churches focus only on spiritual gifts, and use them like an employment tool to put people to work in the church—rather than releasing them for their callings in the world.

For most people, discovering your gifts should really be used to send you out into the world. As well as your gifts, you should consider your resources (such as time and money) and your social opportunities. When you put all these things together, you often have a clear sense of a life-task, or what William Wilberforce called a “great object” that you can do for the Lord. This is a key part of what Acts means when it says that King David “served God’s purposes in his generation.”

While in seminary, I was married, working full time at a church, and trying to take as many units as I could manage to finish my degree as quickly as possible.

Whenever I met someone who had an equally complex schedule and passed on glib answers as to how they kept everything in balance, I discounted the authenticity of the claims. Tensions in ministry and academic demands that pull seminarians apart are not easily resolved by simple formulas, which are unresponsive to life as it is actually lived.

Martin Luther believed that Bible study was best done through oratio (prayer), meditatio (meditation over the text), and tentatio (the tension of working the text into the struggle of actual, everyday experience). Perhaps seminary and ministry will always be fraught with a certain degree of tension. Frankly, I don’t think that is all bad. In some ways the tensions of connecting principle to real life are positive, if they make us honest and keep us grace-dependent.

Paul prayed three times that God would pull some thorn from his side. Readers of the New Testament are kept in the dark as to the exact nature of this thorn. Perhaps this is so that each might find in God’s advice to Paul some degree of comfort relative to whatever tensions one is likely to endure. God told Paul three times, “‘My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness.’” (2 Corinthians 12:9, NLT).

While this doesn’t help in alleviating the burdens seminarians bear as they desperately try to keep everything in balance, living with tension and finding balance is difficult.

Balance is most elusive in ministry. Whenever I was called out to minister to a family in crisis, I would always assume that the family called in good faith and that the need was a real one. My family was fairly patient with demands ministry made on our private life. Such a gift of trust also came with a sense of responsibility to sort out the real need from the chronic need.

Once, when I was a seminarian and youth pastor, a family called me during the night requesting I come immediately to their house to help them resolve a family dispute. I can still remember pulling up curbside and hearing the mother screaming at the son. After I rang the doorbell, the mother opened the door and spoke to me full of sweetness and light. The son, the object of her recent outburst, glared at me.

Several more times that same family called. I soon realized the crises were chronic. When the father called again, I refused to go. The father was incensed and wanted to know why I wouldn’t come. I answered that I was going on a picnic with my family. The father exclaimed, “How can you possibly go on a picnic when my family is falling apart!”

In a manner that was probably too hard, I answered, “Perhaps, if you had gone on more picnics with your family, it wouldn’t be necessary for you to call on me now.” I assured him I was still interested in helping wherever I could, but since his family problems were chronic, I would only be available during my regular office hours.

The matter of balance between family and ministry, at least in this case, seemed rather clear. But it’s not always so simple.

To help find balance in seminary, I daily gathered with a small group of classmates who were also married and in ministry. We would talk each day about the tensions relative to the world in which we found ourselves and pray for one another. These discussions allowed us to avoid simple formulas for addressing these complexities. The community that developed as we listened to one another and processed together was very helpful.

When you are struggling with balancing difficult schedules, it is essential to form such alliances. While it might seem impossible to add to an already hectic schedule, the insights gained from that sort of community would make it worth the while.