When We Can Trust Our Passions

When someone near us seizes a divine moment, it stirs something within us! A lifetime of passivity only makes dormant our longing for adventure. A life where endless moments are left buried in the cemetery of unfulfilled opportunities may grow cold, but not dead. Until our bodies return to dust, there will always be a voice crying out within us to move from merely existing to truly living. The possibilities that await us in each moment are fueled by the potential that God has placed within each of us. Seizing divine moments is not simply about opportunity; rather at its core it is about essence. It's about the kinds of lives we live as a result of the people we are becoming. The challenges that we are willing to face will rise in proportion to the character that we are willing to develop. With a depth of godly character comes an intensity of godly passion. It is in this process of transformation that we find the fuel to engage with confidence the opportunities placed before us.

Strangely, many sincere followers of Christ have come to believe that their passions are always in conflict with God's purposes. Yet the psalmist said, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart" [Ps. 37:4]. When we draw near to God, God infuses passion. God has a long history of working through human desires.

In Buddhism, the goal of the spiritual journey is the elimination of desire. In Christianity, the goal of the spiritual journey is the transformation of our desires. God's intention in transforming our hearts is not the elimination of desire, but something very different. To have no desires is to be without passion. A person who lives without passion is someone who literally apathetic. When we delight in God, we become anything but apathetic. To the contrary, we become intensely passionate. These desires of our hearts are born out of the heart of God. The more you love God, the more deeply you care about people and making a difference in their lives.

There is a direct relationship between passion and initiative. The more passionate we are, the more proactive we will tend to be [even if we boldly do the wrong thing]. And here's where the dilemma lies and this can actually be paralyzing for a sincere follower of Jesus Christ: We don't want to passionately do the wrong thing. We desperately want to do what is in God's heart, not just in our hearts. But here's the liberating reality: "When we are passionate about God, we can trust our passions" [Erwin McManus]. God uses our passions as a compass to guide us. Basically, we when are madly in love with God, we can do whatever we want. This is probably the best contemporary translation of Psalm 37:4.

There are few things more inspiring than a life lived with passionate clarity. Yet those men and women whose lives we admire, who somehow seem to live their lives to the fullest, would probably be the first to tell us that they are no different from you and me. It's not about talent or giftedness or intelligence; its about moving out of passivity into activity. It is about a refusal to live a life in neutral and to value the irreplaceable nature of every moment. For these individuals, time is a priceless commodity. It is about treating each day as a gift from God and recognizing that every moment lost can never be regained. We must become people of initiative born out of a sense of urgency.