Making Passionate Choices in Life

What are you passionate about in life? Shopping or sports, AIDS solutions or automobiles, cooking or cleaning, eating to exist or existing to eat, working or working out, talking or traveling, children or charity? There is so much in life to do and so many ways to live our lives. There are so many choices to make and so many paths to take that some days it may seem overwhelming. And on top of that there are so many people with whom you interface and interact. What are you to do, how are you to live with all these decisions and all these people to contemplate?

Our passions help direct our lives and our choices. I have a passion for Provence in southern France. Therefore my husband and I make the effort to get there every few years. I also have a passion for Jesus because of what he has done for us, is doing for us, and will do for us. Therefore I am devoted to him and want him to direct my life. You see, our passions direct us in making key decisions in our lives. They help dictate how we use our time and our resources. They help us focus our attention on certain people and certain situations. You might ask, however, are certain passions more Christian than others? Passions that are right and passions that are wrong? Passions that are good (moral) and passion that are bad (immoral)? What guides Christian passions? How can Jesus direct our passions and our lives? What does the Bible say?

Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence." This is the most important, the first on any list.

Matthew 22:37, The Message

We know some of our guiding passions are good and some are not so good. We also know we have much greater potential. As a Christian—meaning it is my faith in Jesus that motivates me and my passion to follow him that directs me—I know that I’m less than 100% of who and what I can be. In biblical terms, “all fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 6:23). Christians believe that we are created in the image of God. This image gives us the potential, among other things, to live incredibly awesome lives. We have the potential to love others deeply and wholesomely. We have the potential to make a radical impact upon a world where AIDS, hunger, and poverty mean people die every day in despair and loneliness. We have the potential to reflect 100% of the image of God.

The reality is we don’t live up to that potential. Our human passions are not directing us to live into our God-given image but into another image. It is as if there is a worm that has been downloaded into our hard drive, and it is corrupting the way we are supposed to work. Instead of working at 100%, we’re working at diminished capacity.

One of the things that Jesus does for those who accept him into their lives is that he brings (over time) our percentage up to 100%. For example, if I’m only 5% of what I can be, having him in my life will bring me (eventually/eternally) up to 100% of what God created me to be. And when Jesus is involved in bringing my percentage up, he is involved in directing, or perhaps I should say re-directing my passions, so that I can be a radical follower of Jesus—a.k.a., a passionate disciple.