Rarely do people ever strike a balance between work and life. Popular consensus states that a distinct separation between work and everything else is the key to managing healthy boundaries. Avoid taking business calls outside the office. Refrain from checking work correspondence on the weekend. Designate time for family and leisure. Compartmentalize.

But what if your vocation has eternal significance:When do you clock out? What pressures mount? When do you leave your family to help another?

Separation between life and work is not necessarily possible for pastors David, Justin, and Eliot. Rather than heading home at 5pm to see their families, one pastor answers a member’s theological questions in a parking lot after a Bible study, one pastor will go to another family’s home to counsel them through the wreckage left by a marital affair, another pastor will comfort a teenager who has lost a friend to suicide.

There is pressure in many professions that if you truly love the work and want to bring lasting change to the world, then it demands every waking moment. Having hobbies, taking a day off, or nurturing a family feel like distractions from work rather than everyday joys. As people are encouraged to follow their inclinations, passions, and heart, work becomes internalized. So much is drawn from one well, and all of our well intended separations blur.