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What's Your Passion?

 

"The Greeks didn’t write obituaries. They only asked one question after a man died, “Did he have passion?”—Dean Kansky, Serendipity

What is passion?
Merriam Webster’s dictionary (1828) defines passion as a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something; a strong feeling (such as anger) that causes you to act in a dangerous way.

Having a passion is not always good. A person’s passion may be vengeance or retaliation.

With passion comes perfection, the need, not only to do it well, but to do it perfectly. That internal drive keeps a person focused.

T.S. Elliot said, “We can no more explain a passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind.”

To survive, most of us prefer to be practical rather than passionate. Passionate people challenge the normal, push the boundaries, disregard tradition, reshape the world we know. To be passionate is to be different from everyone else.

What if you don’t have one?
Let’s look at the Savior. What was His passion?

The Savior’s passion wasn’t a hobby that consumed him. The Savior’s passion was his very purpose for being here.

If you have no purpose, you have no passion.
Jesus knew His purpose. He was here for one reason.

When He was twelve, he asked the temple teachers questions when his family left for home. When His mother asked why He did this to them, He asked, “Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s House?” Luke 2:49

When He was baptized, the Father’s voice spoke from heaven, “You are My Beloved Son, in You I am well pleased.” Luke 3:21

When He was tempted in the wilderness by Satan, His response every time centered on what His Father wanted.

When Jesus started His earthly ministry and selected His disciples, He asked His Father for direction.

Even as He came to the end of His earthly life, He told His Father, “Yet not what I will, but what You will.” Mark 14:36

His passion was His Father’s will. His passion led him to a life totally different from what the Jews expected from their Messiah, their King. His passion brought Him to a cross where He died to bring His Father’s pleasure.

It wasn’t DOING something that made the world around Jesus see His passion. He just WAS.

What was Jesus’s passion?
To do the Father’s Will. To do whatever it took to please His Father. To obey in the little things today with no thought of the consequences, because that is the right thing, that is the next thing, that is what the Father wants today.

God has given us purpose.
We cannot save the world, even if we wanted to. So the results of fulfilling our purpose won’t look exactly like what Jesus did.

Our purpose is simple. Our purpose is no different than His Only Son. Our purpose is to please the Father.

And with that purpose, He has given us the ability through His strength to do that purpose.

He wants us to be conformed to His Son.

What should be the passion of every child of God, redeemed by His Own Son’s death and resurrection?

To be like Him. To please Him. To be faithful in the little things.

Do you have a passion?

You bet you do. Now live it.

SOURCES
Lee, Singyin. "Ten Things You Should Know About Passion (And How To Find Yours)." Hongkiat. n.d. http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/finding-passion/ (accessed November 6, 2016).

I write about what matters...to you---
women, wives and moms---
about your family, faith and future.
I write about what's hard, what helps and what heals.
I show you how it's done. And not done.
I hold your hand as you find what matters to the Savior.
And let go of those things that mattered to you, but not to Him.
I write about what matters...to Him.
               Sonya Contreras

Author of Biblical fiction, married to my best friend, and challenged by eight sons’ growing pains as I write about what matters.

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