Deep within the joys which allow us to laugh, love and live, is the passion of our souls. On rare occasions, I am at a loss for words. There are some circumstances where words would only cloud the issue. Even though I might have clever witticisms proposed in my mind, they would just not be best at that moment. There are other times when no amount of internal prompting can generate a single cognitive thought. Usually it is ‘in the moment’ and soon passes. But for those who have read any of my efforts in the past few years, you might be aware of the lulls. Those are days or weeks where nothing is forth coming. And so it has been for almost three weeks now. It is not my audience, not the inspiration or opportunities around me, not even a lack of desire. I simply have not been able to run three sentences together which are worth the time it would take to erase them.
There is one driving force in the great things of life. While ignoring it, we do the mundane well and often. We survive, we try to understand, we stroll down memory lane and if we are fortunate, others wander that way with us. Finding common ground is what writing is about. If what is read does not strike a chord, it is not suffered for long. A sports fanatic is not likely to endure operatic excellence without an intense desire to please someone else. Fine wine is for some the same delicacy as robust coffee is to others. The human body has so very many singular points of admiration that entire lives are focused on eyes or hair or form or fingernails. And don’t even think about mentioning devotion for pets. Regardless of the proposition or antithesis, there can be found the most deliberate and dedicated passion for each.
It is not that I can isolate the passion for a particular leaning. It is certainly not that all wisdom and understanding has been explored and tempered to its ultimate hone. Not even the vast resources that all humanity has ever uttered and stored, is able to define the passion in a single desire. It is only in the source that passion’s power is revealed. Each person will ask themselves, in that reality check moment when one breathe matters more than any other, “What is the source of my passion?” Where does it begin? Is it necessity, selfishness, availability, commonality, uniqueness, or something else? No, the source, the beginning, the constancy which is the river of passion running through you has a single source. Just as a mighty river begins as a single drip in the melting mountain flow.
There is no complete, no well done, no disappointment, nor failure without passion. If it doesn’t matter, it is like lighting a match to a paper while pouring water over it. You can’t read it if you don’t bother to open your eyes. It is not going to get cooked if you don’t turn on the stove. Somewhere, somehow, someway, there has to be a fire. That fire has to have a source and without a viable powerful source, there is no fire. No fire means there was no passion. “Whats” are never the source. Not a mountaintop view, a seashore, nor a vast teaming valley is the source of the passion which drives someone to them. They are only the desired reward. Many mistake the desire to have and to hold for passion. Some see the inanimate as the answer when it doesn’t even know how to ask the question.
The proper question can only be posed by a whom. A what simply is insufficient to consider the results. So the question truly ought to be “Who is your passion?” Who is for you the definer, evaluator, provider of that in your existence which is life? Who determines your likes and dislikes? Who allows you to be content? Who makes you able to thrive in turmoil? Who has the influence in your mind to restore the peace which others find so elusive. The proper question is who knows you, your mind, your way of thinking, well enough to impact you for good with the mere whisper of a single name? Passion is not a name. It is a driving force as powerful as a forest fire yet so controllable as to leave a single sapling untouched. Passion pours light and beauty and color and blazing fireworks into the same space as gentle ocean breezes serenaded by sweetest songbirds under the cover of a million glittering stars.
Who is your passion? Most would say it is one who completes them. Many would point to the one who established within them such skills and talents as would cause them to successfully achieve their goals and desires. Then begs the question “Who was their passion?” Or lacking evidence, some might mumble something to the effect of doubting passion’s place or purpose. A friend has stated that it is often either sin, self or the Savior. Sin is the lure and false apostle of satisfaction. Sin deceives and destroys true passion with cheap imitations and tarnished gifts. Sin permits the temporary to taint passion with pride. Self follows suit by limiting anything which can be, to a mere shadow, rather than the fullness of the image. Self takes the mantle and crown which can never fit like a child pretending to be the wise and venerated king.
At some point in our lives while we laugh and love and live, each of us realizes we need more than our own selves. We are not enough. Not even all the desire and passion we can imagine is sufficient to drive us beyond ourselves. We find our plight lost and undone. In that moment we stare into the vast night sky surrounded by the stars of countless galaxies hoping that there is an answer. And it is there that we discover the Savior we have sought without the knowledge that we are seeking Him. He is the creator, and perfecter. He is the mediator, and absolver. He is the calmer and the restorer. He has a name. It is Jesus. He is the source of all passion. He alone is the satisfier of the longing of your soul. His passion for you is the fountain of eternal life which He desires to be found in you.
Some will read this and discover that they find in themselves no drive, no desire, no passion for the things of a God created universe. They will deny the source and cling to the substitute. Not because they cannot believe but rather because they refuse to believe. For if they admitted to such a source of passion, they would logically and of necessity admit to their rebellion and need for restoration. Deep within the joys which allow us to laugh, love and live, is the passion of our souls. Jesus is not just the source of my passion, He is my passion. My relationship with Him is the definition of who I am and all I can be is in Him. If He is not your passion, then I hope whatever you have will work for now and for eternity. But I do not believe it will, for it is a what and not a who.