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