taking the road not meant for you

the problem with passion and the power of anointing

Many of us read the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost at some point in our childhood education but if you haven’t - here’s the end of it….

I’ve always loved this quote because I feel that it has been much of my story. Walking paths that have not been the norm or expected of my culture, gender, age, experience, skintone, education, and gifts - but here I am. Failing and flourishing on any given day on this less traveled road that God paved for me.

And while I’m grateful for the mistakes I’ve learned from and the meaningful milestones I’ve had, I stop and reflect every once in a while on people I perhaps overlooked, hurt, or pushed aside while walking on this less traveled road. Because I am human, I am going to make mistakes and I’m going to hurt people. My hope and intention is to never do this on purpose but if I do, that I would acknowledge it, repent of it, and change. I don’t always do this in a timely matter or perfect way but nevertheless, my heart is to see people as I walk this road and never use them or overlook them.

But there folks out there that will harm because they didn’t go on a road less traveled but a road they weren’t meant to be on in the first place.

It was September 2020 and I was sitting on my balcony with someone who was a friend (at that time) and we were discussing what the church we were a part of at the time could do to become healthier. We came to the conclusion that a part of the reason our church at that time wasn’t fully healthy was because the lead pastor was not walking the path created for him by God.

Part of our paths in lives are directly connected to the gifts we have been given. There are many gifts God has given us but some are specifically assigned to this idea of a 5-fold ministry - which can be found in Ephesians 4:11-13, where it says:

“And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.”

The purpose of these gifts and callings is to equip and build up the body of Christ. But when we walk in the wrong calling/gift, we could do the very opposite of this.

The lead pastor of our church at that time in September 2020 was clearly an evangelist. In how he talked, lived, thought, and connected with people but he was teaching with the title of Pastor. Not walking in his calling as an evangelist led him to harm people, lead with ego, and not pastor at all. 3 years later, he was fired from this very job of being a “pastor”.

Years before this - in spring of 2015, I was freshly walking in my path with Jesus as a baby Christian again and was re-learning about God, His Church, and His word. And we began to be a part of a church plant of pastors from Florida. I can’t tell you what specifically these people’s callings/gifts are when it comes to that Ephesians 4 list but it’s not pastoring or apostleship.

Now, the Apostles position is something that holds lots of different theologies these days because some people say Apostles no longer exist today while some hold firm to the idea that they do. I’m not going to be defending either side with lots of words but I will say I believe Church planters today are what we would call Apostles.

So in the case of these pastors from Florida, they were sent by their parents to plant a church in New York City. But they spent years harming people in the process of their planting. And they are still doing that very thing almost a decade later.

Perhaps ironically, these very pastors were all always “the pastors” in both Churches I was a part of. Very rarely did they make room for others to preach and they didn’t give the “pastor” position/role to anyone else.

Passion can be fleshly because it can make your passion become a tool to feed your ego. So much so that there’s no more room for anyone else. You might just convince yourself that no one else is anointed for the same thing you think you’re anointed for.

There’s a difference between walking a road less traveled and walking a road you weren’t meant to walk at all.

Some people might say that God appoints people to the position they are in and if they don’t belong there then God will remove them. I don’t know if that’s always true though. In the case of the Pastor that had signs of being an evangelist, God did remove him but in the case of the pastors that were sent church planters, God has not removed them. Does this mean they are called to that position? I don’t necessarily think so.

See, I think there’s a difference between anointing and passion. Our passions are personal and emotional. Our anointing is from God and for a bigger purpose. People who are anointed for a work will be equipped for it. Moses was anointed to help free Israel from slavery. God equipped him with a tool, His presence, and a support (Aaron).

People who are passionate aren’t necessarily qualified to help with all things because not all ‘help’ is helpful. I worked with trafficking survivors for 7 years as a social worker and I was anointed for that work but if I was just passionate about that work, I would have quit long before I did and I would have likely not helped some of those survivors recover well since they needed real professionals that understood them, the system, the injustice, and restorative practices for their flourishing.

Should people who are anointed for something be passionate? Yes, but passion alone cannot be the driving force. Jesus has to be the driving force. Real assignment has to be the driving force. Passion is not a bad thing but it can cause pain when it’s misplaced, misused, or misunderstood.

Not everywhere we go, we are sent by God.

And I think we believe this too much about ourselves and people.

Not every person with a publishing deal is an anointing writer.

Not every preacher is an anointed teacher.

Not every manager is an anointed leader.

Not every pastor is an anointed shepherd.

Not every person we follow or listen to or learn from is anointed for the work.

Now I know that people that are anointed for something can also cause harm and use their gifts for the elevating of their own self. Which is another thing to discern too. This is not attacking passions or gifts but an invitation to discern what it means to honor the road less traveled God has paved for the Body of Christ. The road of sanctification that is collective and purposeful.

Our role as the Body of Christ is to discern.

We don’t need to make it our job to search for false teachers but we should discern if someone is in the place god placed them or if they placed themselves there. Not necessarily from a distance but from people up close and personal to us. We need to discern if they created a road that was not paved for them. Not to cancel them, judge them, or rebuke them (unless a rebuke is necessary) but so we can actually live in a collective flourishing. So we can actually be sanctuaries.

Passion is nice but anointing brings liberation to all.

After all, Jesus was the Anointed One and gave us the ultimate freedom we all desperately needed.

In Luke 4:18, Jesus said,

He wasn’t just passionate about saving people, He was anointed for it. May we be like Him in this way too, walking the road less traveled but certainly walking the road paved for us by the will of God and not our flesh or made up roads full of misplaced passion.

—your fellow sanctuary, Pricelis Perreaux-Dominguez

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