Family Life

Discipleship Life

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    In Discipleship Life

    passion – my fickle friend

    What are you passionate about?

    When asked, I rambled off a list of things I liked to do and eventually resolved that in this season of life with work and kids I’m probably just passionate about doing what I want to do when I want to do.

    Five or so years ago I would have immediately said – God’s word and discipleship with sincerity.

    I WANT to be passionate about those things again but saying it as if it’s a present truth just doesn’t ring true.

    From my experience, passion can be fickle. Not in a bad way where I look at others in a pessimistic way whose passions ooze out of them. I actually look at them with envy or endearment – depends on the day.

    What I mean is that the zeal, newness, excitement of a passion can wane when struck with hardship, reality, other people, different priorities, different seasons, and the biggest one – my own expectations. Expectations of what it would be like to live out that particular passion. The ways I thought I would live it out compared to the way it actually was/is.

    At one time I could say that discipleship is a passion – but it looked like meeting up with women at coffee shops or in my living room walking through how to have a quiet time or share their faith. Going through a check-off list of growth markers until they were “officially” mature believers.

    What it ended up looking like was people who are not equations to solve or fix. There were different tangents that took us “off course” from my box into Real Life, lives that are messy and hard.

    It looked like being home with kids that I want and love but not seeing the opportunity of discipleship right in front of me. Instead, longing for the romanticism of coffee dates discussing what God had been teaching us lately.

    I’ve been relearning what it means to BE a disciple and to disciple. And God’s doing something – he’s growing hope in my heart. He’s rekindling a flame that I wondered would ever resurface. He’s growing a passion that’s rooted firmer in him than it is idealistic. That’s a bit more something else – a bit more realistic but also hopeful. That leaves lots and lots of room for real people and real people’s problems. Space for Him, for me to do the pointing to him and Him to do the healing.

    So, passion – I’m not driven by it – I’m driven by the Spirit. Passion is a gift and when it shows its beautiful fickle face – I embrace it and ride the wave knowing that when the wave settles or throws me overboard – I can continue on without it. Sometimes that’s also just called obedience.


    note: i am writing again, taking steps toward simply putting words on “paper”, so please excuse unpolished possibly incomplete thoughts and grammar – i am growing, i am learning, i am exercising a weak muscle – i am writing, again.