Passion

There is something inherently interesting about people and passion.  When someone is passionate they are intense, engaged, competitive, interested, consumed, and, did I say intense?  It is an amazing sight.  Everything else takes second place.  Sounds, normal distractions, and obstacles seems to melt into soft nothingness compared to the object of attention.  The process can apply to a task, project, activity, subject, and on good days people.  I find myself experiencing the best of life when I am around passionate people.
 
Far too often we, the word is accurately “I”, get caught up in the humdrum step by step process of walking life’s path.  It isn’t that I choose to take a boring side-road.  I just stumble along, inadvertently choosing with life offers, falling prey to the whim of the moment.  The process is extremely boring, predictable, and safe.  Conflicts should be avoided at all costs.  Controversy is something one should stay far away from.  Commitments are not something to be pursued, accepted, or treasured.
 
Passion is the opposite of everything I just talked about.  If one is passionate little is predictable or even safe.  Conflict will find you without warning.  Controversy will be a familiar friend.  Commitment will be at the heart of each and every step. 
 
Before one takes a stand for or against passion I want to remind you of two facts.  First, the “best” at anything are passionate about at least one thing.  Second, God is passionate about you and me.  The first fact should guide our response to life.  The second fact is a reminder of what we encounter with God.  Divinity’s passion is “a torrent of words, a flash flood of words sweeping everyone into the vortex of his words.  He'll [God will] shake down the nations in a sieve of destruction, herd them into a dead end.”  (Isaiah 30.28) 
 
Passion often seems to intense, yet it is at the heart of real living.  God too can seem to be over the top at times.  Yet when you hear the whole story there is a magical completeness to it all.