It Must Be Nice...

Recently, after sharing that I had purchased a BMW motorcycle, I got this comment from someone I bumped into, “It must be nice to be able to afford a BMW motorcycle.”

You know what?

Yes. As a matter of fact, it is nice.

It’s nice to have a motorcycle. It’s nice to have a camper that my family can escape to on the weekends. It’s nice that my wife and I have two cars that are paid off. I’m thankful for all of it.

But sometimes I wonder why people especially when it comes to pastors see what someone has without considering the work, sacrifice, decisions, and years behind it.

Yes, I’m a pastor. I’ve devoted more than two decades of my life to serving the same church and community. But being a pastor isn’t the only thing I do. If you figure in my time as a youth pastor, I am just 1 year shy of 3 decades being a pastor.

I’m also the Executive Director of a nonprofit crisis center. My wife, Tracy, works incredibly hard as a NICU nurse—not at one hospital, but two. On top of that, our family has a little side hustle doing 3-D printing with our son, Noah.

And if there’s an opportunity to make a few extra bucks, I’m usually willing to work.

This spring, for example, I spent time washing campers to earn some extra money. It wasn't glamorous, but work is work, and I've never believed I was above doing something simply because I'm a pastor or an Executive Director.

What people sometimes don't want to hear is the story behind the things they see.

For example, I got a new-to-me car this spring. Someone could look at it and think, “Must be nice.” And again, yes, it is! But here’s the rest of the story.

I traded in my van. Around the same time, our camper was totaled by insurance. Instead of simply taking the insurance money and spending it, I bought the camper back and used the remaining insurance settlement toward the car. Between that money and my trade-in, I was able to pay the car off.

That isn't extravagance. That's making the most of what you have.

And this isn't the first time I've experienced people making assumptions based simply on what they could see.

I remember when iPads first came out. At one point, Tracy and I had two of them—one for me and one for her. I had people close to me who thought having two iPads was pretty extravagant.

Then, as time went on, I found out that some of those same people eventually had six iPads in their household!

Funny how our definition of “extravagant” can change when we're the ones buying it.

That's one of the dangers of looking at somebody else's life from the outside. We see the motorcycle. We see the car. We see the camper. We see the iPad. What we don't necessarily see are the hours worked, the second job, the side hustle, the trade-in, the deal someone found, the years something has been owned, or the financial decisions that made it possible.

And that brings me to something I've wondered about for years:

Why do pastors so often have to live under a microscope when it comes to what people think they should or shouldn't have?

If a pastor drives an old, beat-up car, someone might wonder why the church doesn't pay him better. If he drives something nice, someone wonders whether the church is paying him too much.

If he never takes a vacation, people tell him he's going to burn out. If he buys a camper and gets away with his family on the weekends, someone wonders how he can afford it.

If he works a second job, people wonder whether he's committed enough to the church. If he doesn't work a second job and has something nice, people wonder where the money came from.

Sometimes you just can't win.

I don't believe pastors should live extravagantly at the expense of the people they serve. I believe we should be responsible, generous, honest, and good stewards of what God has entrusted to us.

But I also don't believe there's anything inherently spiritual about being broke.

There is nothing wrong with working hard. There is nothing wrong with having multiple sources of income. There is nothing wrong with saving money, finding deals, buying used, doing side jobs, paying off debt, and then enjoying some of the fruit of your labor.

My wife and I work hard for what we have. We have made sacrifices. We've made financial decisions that others never see. We've taken on extra work. We've bought used. We've traded things in. We've sold things. We've done side hustles.

And through all of it, God has been good to us.

So yes...

It is nice to have a BMW motorcycle.

It is nice to have a camper.

It is nice to have paid-off vehicles.

And I'm thankful for every bit of it.

Oh, and for those who are interested in just how extravagant this pastor's new BMW motorcycle really is...

It's a 2006 BMW, and I paid $2,000 for it.

And I'll be selling my moped, which should give me back about half of that.

So, yes...

It must be nice.

And it is.