I picked up a book recently called The War of Art and read it in an evening. I have been on Amazon ordering copies for my friends ever since. The author takes an honest and humorous look at the forces that keep us from doing what we are called to do.

When I came across these lines (below), I was taken with the idea that when we do not pursue our calling — whether it is teaching, coaching, running a business, inventing the next iPhone — we aren’t just crippling our own souls, we are actually hurting humanity.

As people called to love our neighbors, I think it is necessary for us to consider the weight and damage that we cause when we do not pursue the life and the work we are called into…

“Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action. Do it or don’t do it. It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.

You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.

Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution.

Give us what you’ve got.” ~ Steven Pressfield from The Art of War

As you sit at your desk or at the kitchen table today — ask yourself — are you truly pursuing what God has called you to?