Thoughts on the Problem of Pain and the Purpose of Passions

What are passions? How do we get them? Are they developed from exogenous forces that come from our environments, from places and things and situations we cannot change? Are they inspired by God? Or are they something we consciously form, something we create in ourselves?

I have struggled with this question in the wake of significant changes in a ministry I am affected by and in which I have a vested interest and commitment. A “season of change” -- to use a frustrating, but apt cliché -- has entered into the leadership, and people I feel closely connected to have left, citing an erosion of passion as the primary reason for their departure. With tears in their eyes and pain in their hearts, they spoke up in a meeting and let others know their justifiable frustrations, concerns, hopes, and ultimately, the decision to step down. As I left the meeting, I could not help but dwell on the concept of passion -- what it means, how it develops, where it comes from, how it grows, how and if it dies.

There are many angles from which we can consider the passions we have as individuals. They can come directly from God. They can come from our environment, out of our control. They can be something we create. Or, more likely, they can be a mixture of all three. If they come directly from God, there are questions to be asked. How large is our involvement in fostering those passions? Do some passions come for a season? If so, when do we know that the season is over?

I don't particularly like the environment argument, so I'll dismiss it outright. Situations are complex for all of us, but what we are passionate about is something that comes from God but is pursued by us. God uses our environment, our relationships, our struggles, our skills -- all of it -- to create an excitement about an area of ministry, work, school, or something else where we feel we can have an impact and allow God to work through us. But that word -- excitement -- seems misleading. Too often, I feel we attach passions to our feelings. We look at our situations and consider how we can use these passions to create solutions, foster growth, and lead. But nowhere in Jesus' example does His passion rest on solely excitement, on intense feelings of well-being, on happiness. Jesus sweat blood. He struggled with His purpose, His passion. At times it was not easy. It was not a smooth transition to sacrifice.

Admittedly, it is easy for me to sit and type these words, not having gone through the intense struggles and deep pains that the people who have left the ministry have experienced in the past few months. But regardless of this fact, I relate to their fears, their successes, their failures, and their pains through their passion. We worked in the same ministry. We reached the same people. We worshiped together. Why am I so fortunate to retain the great feelings of my passion for this ministry? Why, as they said, has God brought about a period where their passion has “died?”

On the other end of the spectrum are those who did not initially have a passion for our ministry. On the face of it, this seems unacceptable to many, particularly those under the passionless. But time seems to have “flipped” the scenario. Today, the passionless have been humbled, broken, and seem to have developed what they did not have earlier. How did this happen? How did passion develop where it did not exist before?

I believe that passion is something God inspires in all of us in different areas. But to deepen this idea, I also believe that it is something God inspires through the relationships we make with one another as believers and outwardly toward unbelievers. We watched a video at Amplify on Tuesday night about a ministry that provides food for homeless people -- lovingly referred to as “FHBs,” or “Fellow Human Beings.” The ministry gives a great example of how relationships can change passions by altering perceptions. The speaker in the video put it plainly (and I paraphrase, here). “It's easy to drive by someone and give them money. It's harder to come down and invest time into their lives.” I can't recall how often I've reached into my pocket and pulled out some loose change to give to a homeless person. At best, it cost me a soda that day. But when I speak to my parents about their mission trips to orphanages in Mexico, they can both recall in vivid detail -- and nearly twenty years later, in some cases -- the faces, the lives, and the places they impacted. My parents have had a passion for giving, but it only became real when they went down and made a relationship, invested time in someone's life, and spoke love into their lives. Passion is God inspired, but it is also something we have to work at on a daily basis. Relationships take careful consideration of feelings, but they also rely on the “tough love” challenges of close friends. They rely on open ears and open hearts and open eyes to deepen the calling that God has placed.

So if passions can develop by us being open to his calling, how then do they die? I still do not understand this. In truth, I may never know. But I do know that when we are most broken, when we are angered and hurting, there is a love that can cover all wounds, that can heal all relationships, that can change lives. There is a peace that passes all of our understanding, all of the inferior machinations of our futile attempts to comprehend His purpose for us.  For those who stayed for the meeting, there was no shaking the feeling that love did not govern over all that was said. We left and went our separate ways, and I'm sure we all found different ways to look fondly at what God has done and optimistically at what He will do next in the ministry. But we left without loving. We left without compassion. We left without a basic passion for each other, not as “leaders,” not as “ministers.” As friends. As Christians. As Fellow Human Beings. We all -- and I mean all -- left without a passion for love. Godly, forgiving, perfect love. I am saddened, deeply hurt, and struggling to understand how I stood by and did nothing to say what God had put on my heart.

In the days ahead, there will be many challenges for the ministry, including those who stay and those who leave, whoever they might be. But the great challenge is not to find replacements. It is not to find candidates. The challenge is to find a way back to the passion that united us all together as Christians. The challenge is, for those who leave and for those who stay and for those who come, to arrive at a place where what we do is founded on love. It is to reach a level of spiritual maturity where we can comprehend the struggles, downturns, and problems with communication that come from the relationships that evangelism requires.

These words come from someone who grapples with these issues on a daily basis. My personal life is fraught with errors in judgment, lack of communication, and a deficiency of outward manifestations of His love and forgiveness. But that is no excuse for silence. That is no excuse for a greater sin of omission. I apologize to all who attended for not taking the initiative on my part to express how I felt last night. I pray for everyone who attended and pray for guidance for the great decisions they now face. I pray that where there are Christian souls, there are open hearts and open ears, attentive to the direction God is leading them to, careful to take every step toward their passions with love. That love for one another, that heart of our faith is, in the end, the greatest passion of all, the one we share regardless of where we find ourselves today and expect to be tomorrow.

If you do nothing else after reading this post, look up 1 Corinthians 3. Read it slowly. Think it through. And pray about your passions.