Passion, please burn

Passion has never usually been a problem for me. I was the girl who cared. I cared about the environment. I cared about suffering. I cared about injustice. I cared about my friends, and school, and city. I cared about justice. I cared about causes. Most university students I know care about causes. I went to a school where rallies and protests and painting a cannon overnight with your message was a daily occurrence. I had a voice, and I wasn't afraid to raise it.

But lately, I've been noticing that I've been going along with life's motions. I still care about things - but something feels empty. There's an inner lull. Not that I'm apathetic, but that something is lacking. I don't think being committed to causes equals real passion, because causes come and go. Causes change and transform overtime. I want something deeper than a cause - I want real passion.

I want to be filled with a passion that directs the rest of my life. Passion that's on fire. Ablaze.

I thought I had real passion but now I'm not so sure. When my causes came and went, I was left aside like an empty vessel. Was I really passionate about that? Or was I getting caught up in a cause? What does real passion even look like anyways? There are some deep doubts at the bottom of my soul that I think are dulling my passion. Little drops of water being sprinkled on my fire. Doubts that cloud my vision and make it hard to see at the end of that dark tunnel of circumstance.

I don't think doubts are actually wrong. Questions are important, and overtime it's important to wrestle through those deeper issues that face us.

• Why is this happening?
• God, why aren't you intervening?
• I don't know what to do anymore.
• Where is my life headed?

What are your doubts like? Are they like mine? I think doubts to some extent are part of a normal life, but I don't want them to dilute my passion. I don't want them to define my faith. I think I'm allowing my doubts and struggles to prevent me from believing and understanding God's truth about my life.

I want, and need my passion to burn ablaze. Crackle in the middle of a dark night. Passion to direct my heart and set me on a path of righteousness and steadfastness. Passion to fill me with joy in the midst of pain and sorrow. Passion to wipe my tears and hold my head up high and walk forward.

Even though I may be saying hello to grief for a little while, I know it wont stay here forever. I need a deep passion to carry me through this season. To be the hand that pulls me from the bottom of that swimming pool.

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:25-26

I think true and lasting passion needs to stem from the origin of passion himself. My passion needs to come from an outflow of my deeper desire for God. To experience him, to become like him, and to be satisfied in him only. I know, sounds weird right? Maybe I'm lacking passion because I'm allowing my doubts to be bigger in my life than my love for God. On my own, I feel empty, scared, and uncertain. But God is the strength of my heart - and my portion forever. If I take this to heart and choose to believe it today, than maybe I'll experience that true satisfaction in him and thus my passion will burn a little brighter. It'll be some wind to blow the little crackle into a raging fire. I could use that today.