Living/Loving/Passionately

I don't know how to get more passion. I know more how to get caught or how to get your toes stubbed on the corner of door frames. I do know, from experience, that if you want to live passionately, you have to live carefully.

When you feel and believe in things strongly, it's like walking along the edge of a knife. You can do it, but you risk slipping and getting cut. You risk disappointment and getting burned out, but any risks are also heavily outweighed by the potential of living passionately. You can live motivated and be a motivator. You can live encouraged and be an encourager. {Realizing too, that intensity, emotion and how you 'feel' are not the height or the crux of your faith.} You can feel strongly, but you have to make sure it's all in focus.

Source - {what you're passionate about} - Target

Passion is an inherently emotionally charged state, therefore it is inherently unstable. Passion needs a steady, unchanging source and target in order for it to be profitable and invigorating. God is the only one who is steady and unchanging; He will give you your passions and the strength to carry them out, outlined within His plan for your life. He needs to be the fuel and the end target of your passions if you want fire. Without God, our passion is just intense intentions, a flame that never catches, leaving you pacing, frustrated, and ultimately unfulfilled. I want fiery faith for myself that lasts, and I want it for you too. Not "Oh, she's on fire for God {for now}" or "she was on fire earlier in her life". No. I've prayed for God to hold on to me, to never let me gradually slip into lukewarm water, to never let my heart gradually harden towards Him, to not get comfortable or jaded. I need to need Jesus, know Jesus, love Jesus, live Jesus.

You can be passionate about acting, but that is not from or for you. You can be passionate about fly-fishing, or coin collecting, or bowling, or your kids, or various causes, or your various areas of ministry. But these are not from or for you. {Your talents, aspirations, and gifts are all from Him and for Him, His Kingdom, His purposes.} I have slipped off the knife when either the source or the target of my passions have been misaligned. I have tried to be passionate about God while bypassing His Word or His strength (tell me how that one works). I've also cut myself by becoming more passionate about Godly ideas or people, rather than God Himself. The result both times has been pain. {Growth. Distance. Self-Preservation. Then grace which felt like washing all of it down a sink. Point being, God will use and redeem anything; even our 'gunk'. And it's not without apologies; when my messy walk has collided negatively with yours... I'm sorry. God is working and walking it out in me.}

Passion fueled by and for God gets you somewhere. It's the bottom plane of the contraption that will "launch you into your God-given destiny" (Christine Caine). There are other parts that lead you to your destiny in Christ, but I believe passion given by and for Him is the foundation. Life is a gift from Him; everything He gives to you is from Him. Why not worship and live for Him? Apathetic Christians... I don't think there's a greater oxymoron.

{Revelation 3:16}

It's noticeable, and it's perplexing. We are passionate. We get excited by and intensely focused on many things, but often these things we focus on are not the right things, nor are they the substantial or long-lasting things. And then we wonder why our faith is tired, boring, weak, fruitless, and God is seemingly far from us. We do get fired up... but over sports, celebrities, TV shows, new album releases, concerts, promotions, trips, the next 'big thing', church stuff, ministry stuff, or my personal snare, other people. These are good things, but they're not God things. We're meant to enjoy the world's things, we can't live beyond the world when we were created to live IN the world. But her stuff can't be the center of it all. We need a higher plane of thinking. Without God at the heart of it, what is the point? What is the meaning? How can we re-direct a burning fire?

I believe we're not passionate about God's things, because we're still wrapped up in the wrong things. They consume us. They distract us. The greatest 'thing' has already come and gone; the best and the 'highest' made Himself low, bleeding reconciliation with each beat - the ultimate expression of what it means to be passionate, what it looks like to live and love passionately. The second definition for passion in the dictionary is "the suffering and death of Jesus", only after "a strong and barely controllable emotion". This man, Jesus, came and lived on earth, and died for you, His love, in order to be with you again, and left us not only His example, but the strongest, most passion-filled commandment to live by: love God, love people. Do you want to live a full life? Do you want to love fiercely? Love God, love people {and then pray for His protection! That is some intense, vulnerable living.}

See, if you're walking with God, He doesn't want to be just one of your passions; He already is the Passion. The center, wanting to be your center, like a nucleus. He doesn't want to be just another thing thrown into the laundry, a 'thing' you do a few times a week, another activity, another task. He's intense; He wants all of you, all of your time, all of your focus, all of your dedication, all of your energy, to be all you desire, and to be the only one that you love. And He was willing to die for you to have that. That's passion.

Yes, make plans. Go to school. Seek Godly counsel. Wait and pray for your future spouse. Get that job. Work hard. Make money. Save it up. Give it away. Join a cause. Raise your voice.

Now, try again with a perspective shift, infused with passion, with God at the center:

Go to school for Him. Seek Godly counsel because it's all about Him. Wait for Him. Get that job for Him. Work for Him. Use your money, time, and talents for Him. Join the cause for Him. Raise your voice for Him.

Your life is not about you; it never was! You are not supposed to be the source or the target of your passion(s); you can't sustain it. 'Us' in charge leads to disappointment and ultimate purposelessness. Your God is good, the highest, the strongest, and He is trustworthy. He can handle all of you; You can trust Him to fully take the reins from your hands. So let go. He knows you, He loves you, and He's for you (Romans 8:31). Put Him as the center, and watch how your life and faith ignite.

Have you heard this song?

Center of It All - Desperation Band



Lastly, when it comes to passion, my girl says it best. Seriously, make watching this one a priority!
Christine Caine Passion 2014

Love Never Fails

I've been home for four days now, and I'm still asking God to piece together this post for me. On my own it feels impossible to sift through a mountain of moments and experiences, each weighted and powerful, somehow trying to connect strings between things that, for now, float freely. But I'm not on my own, God. You give meaning to moments; it's You who builds understanding; it's You who can take a life and radically transform it, all by your choosing, your grace. God, You never let go; You never fail, and for this {for who You are}, I praise You; I'm grateful, honored, consistently amazed. Lord, I love You.

This week, God had specific work for us at the same church we visited last year, Fuego de Dios, in the heart of an impoverished community in Ensenada, Mexico. It showed up in a pile of dirt; in the faces of children, on bare walls in a church, and in the soil of tired hearts; both Mexican and American. Tired, from trying to live life apart from Him, tired in knowing Him intellectually but rarely experientially, and sometimes tired by the sheer monotony of 'faith' altogether.

God swept through His people this week, leaving behind Him a wake of bewilderment, then awe, and the beginnings for personal transformation. I believe one of my prominent roles this week was simply to watch all of this unfold. In observing, I felt Him say, "I love you", and I am forever grateful and changed by this.

It was a privilege and a blessing to be a part of our team this year, to watch our kids grow in their compassion for each other, and in their relationships with God. Here's what I saw; I saw you, and I saw God working in and through you. Through uncertainty, anxiety, and not knowing 'your place', God met you and said 'you're good, I'll use you'. I saw you speaking Spanish, kids hugging your legs, your character in the midst of pain, your face in the candlelight as you were prayed over in your re-commitment to the Lord. I saw you when you cracked awkward jokes, and were accepted anyways, pulled into the group, belonging. I saw your humor and how funny you are. You too, who will always be a bit of a mystery to me. I will remember how you looked and how we felt when you went into the water, public declarations and the light in you that turned heads and made people talk. He sees you where you are. I can tell you He's trustworthy, but ultimately it is between you and  Him, and it's your choice alone to follow Him. I hope you will; He loves you. When you washed their feet, and nothing ever looked more like humility. When you helped make it beautiful, painting both little faces and the walls of the church, sealing it with scripture, words that the Pastor preached and that meant something to us too. When we heard 'amen, amen' and it sounded different than ours, but it showed that prayer is universal, and that God's word transcends culture and language. There were new friends, and inside jokes, and tacos, and every mystery of what the human body can do discussed. And frequently ;) Hands raised, people standing, commitments renewed, vows made to follow Him, no matter where He takes us. Fears addressed, breakthroughs in God healing past hurts, or reconciling personalities in becoming more like His. From gossip to grace, from misunderstanding to compassion. From having everything to seeing what nothing looks like. We experienced it, and He was glorified.

Worshiping God under the stars in Mexico is an experience that is hard to rival, in my opinion. The music, and more importantly God's truths within the lyrics, combined with our experiences, His timing, and the words of our speaker were powerful. And that's an understatement. Our speaker for the trip, Steve Pinto, is gifted and talented. I'm thankful for him, that he presents truths in a relevant way for young people. I'm also thankful for his God-infused words that both strengthened us sending us out, and comforted us welcoming us back each day. This pattern of beginning and ending each day with God's Word is ideal; I want to bring it home and make it mine.

The theme of the week was Love Never Fails, pulled from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8:

"Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away."

Lately, 'love' has felt a little more sour in my mouth, a little more bitter going down, a little more sarcastic coming out, a little more ill-defined, and a little more seemingly misrepresented. The reason for this comes down to something painfully simple - that when something ('love' in this case) is clearly defined by God, but is blurred or watered down somehow by the world, there's a palpable inconsistency and incongruity to it. I don't believe there is a single Christian, past/present/future, who has been/is/or ever will be immune to this blurring. I don't. And it's because while yes, our souls are saved and becoming sanctified, our flesh is not. It stays the same, and we're stuck in it - as it rots and sinks within us, under the weight of new life, transformed thought, and a new spirit with wings. The only natural outcome of these conflicting forces is... unrest. And so I've thought a lot about the word 'love', and what it means. I think this is why I've been so detached and unfeeling lately... love doesn't mean what we 'feel' like it should... even for Christians, who maybe have had His Word etched into them for a long time. This is what happens when we let the world and her definitions infiltrate our hearts or captivate our thinking. It hurts and warps our desires. See, if I start to believe that love is a state of being, or a feeling, I'm bound to be disappointed, because all feelings fade. If I start to believe that love is the point of life, yes even as a Christian with Godly intent, I'm bound to be heart-broken, because love on its own dies. If I start to look to others for love, or affection, or even affirmation, I will always have that lingering ache I've come to resent. Listen, 'you' do not affirm you; your spouse does not affirm you, your pastor, your teacher, your friend; they can't affirm you. They are human, therefore they are weak, therefore on their own, they will fail you. Familial love fails. Friendships fail. Romantic love fails. Love on its own, fails. Love, as an idea or even as an action, on its own, is not enough. Love, as a person, is.

This is love; God loved you, yes you, so much, that He couldn't stand to be apart from you. He sent Jesus to bridge the gap of darkness and sickness that separates you from Him, by allowing Him to die in your place. See, we all deserve death before a Holy God (Romans 3:23). But that same God, who knew we would fail in our frailty, gave us His self-sustaining, unfailing love: Jesus. His heart beats reconciliation; that is romance, that is love. And so, it's the personhood of Jesus Christ, the ultimate expression of God's love, that will never fail you. It is Jesus who affirms you and makes you whole. His affection and love are enough. Jesus will never fail you. His love never fails. Jesus never fails.

This entire trip, this year, my life so far... He's been trying to tell me this. To pursue me, to convince me that He's enough. And I have spent this time until now accepting it with my mind, confessing and professing it with my lips, living my life for Him under a brand-new white banner, and yet not even come close to fully grasping His love for me. I grabbed a handful of sand on the beach this week, and tried to imagine how often He thinks of me, of just how much He loves me. Maybe it will take a lifetime. That is how far-reaching, how vast, how deep His love is for us. And it's not just His love for us; God's love through us is the solution in every situation, the cure-all, the antidote. On our own, we fail. But God's love in and through us, never fails.

I drew this a couple of days ago, and kept the erased attempts on purpose. All other loves fade, but His love is relentless.

Another lesson I learned deals with the concept of 'passion'. Passionately is how God pursued us, with fire, great intent, genuine love. It's bold faith. But loving others passionately, like Jesus did, is like walking along the blade of a knife in our current state. Passion needs both a source and a target in order for it to go anywhere. God should be both the source and end target of our passion(s). When either of these is out of sync, we can expect to get cut. When our passions are misdirected, or when God is not the source of our passion, we can also expect burn out.

Also, God broke a lot of my fear, timidity, and self-consciousness on this trip. He told me, and it's so simple, that He made me; therefore I'm good. Believing anything else about myself (barring sinfulness or fleshly stuff that needs to be rooted out) is like telling the Creator His Creation was a mistake, that it's not good enough, or that it needs work. Luckily, God loves weak people, and He never stops working in them. Fear is a huge snare for me. Earlier this year, I compared pride to cancer, and this comparison has me thinking again. If pride is the cancer of Christianity, then fear is like muscular atrophy. There are a wide variety of causes and factors that lead to this, but most often it's due to either injury, infection, or simply put - lack of use. The spiritual parallels here are no different. Fear is what infects us, injures us, and often leads to spiritual paralysis. When we shrink back, shrivel up, hide, or try to minimize our God-given identity in Christ, we forfeit our destiny, abdicate our place in God's tapestry, and ultimately, Satan wins. Personally, I'm not giving him that victory anymore.
















"For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus."

Philippians 1:6

I'm grateful, moved, changed, and not alone in this. I'm thankful for the work God did in and through us in Mexico. I'm reminded of His love for us, and it gives me hope.

Calling on Fire - Bellarive

Your Love Never Fails - Jesus Culture

One Thing Remains - Kristian Stanfill

Relentless - Hillsong

Set Me Free - Worship Central