A Passionate Fool: Following Up

If you've been tracking with my posts for the last few weeks, you most likely read my post on my lack of balance in my spiritual life. (If not, A Passionate Fool.) Well, since then, I've been asking God to provide me with knowledge of His heart from His Word. I told God I was thirsty, and He proceeded to offer me a drink...from the exposed and flowing end of a fire hydrant. To drown in God's love is a fascinating feeling. 

The past two Sundays at church, however, the message has been firmly planted in a singular and clear message: passion. Last week, I chuckled at the irony that God would choose to bring up the idea of passion in the midst of so many messages leading me to seek knowledge and wisdom. They just seem to fall on such polar ends of the spiritual spectrum. This week, hearing the message of passion a second time, I know I heard God loud and clear. 

Passion, you see, and knowledge, may be somewhat bipolar in nature, but they are not mutually exclusive. In fact, in my life, it seems, the two are directly proportionate. What I started with was passion, an intense love and desire to chase after Jesus, wherever He may go. I started to seek out knowledge and wisdom rather than just desire. I thought that search would yield, well, more knowledge and wisdom. What I've learned, however, is that what I have actually gained (besides added knowledge and wisdom), is even more passion. I didn't see that coming. It wasn't even in the sermons over the past few weeks. 

But here's what was in those sermons. Christians have tried to depassionize (sure, I can make up words like that) everything because passion is unpredictable, it's wild, it's dangerous. And our passions can indeed be misguided. Sinful nature is a powerful thing, and our desires for sinful things are strong. So, wanting to repress these desires in order to strive for holiness seems natural. But in the process, we've also repressed our godly passions, the ones inspired by the Holy Spirit living within us because no passion seems like a better option than the battle between good and bad passions. And when we repress God, when we tell Him to step back and stop inspiring passion in our lives, all we are left with is bad passion.

The very idea of passion comes from God. Without passion, there is no salvation. Without passion, Jesus would never have volunteered to come to earth as a baby, to heal the sick, to love the unlovable, to die on a cross. In gratitude, I can only, I must respond in passion, a passion that is directed by the Holy Spirit and instructed by the Word, an inextricably woven wonder.