Donna Naborsyour Spiritual jewelry box.

 

Passionate Intensity

What are you passionate about? Is there anything that consumes your every thought?

Right now I am on a weight loss kick. A picture taken on my grandson’s 15^th birthday showed me just how much weight I had gained. Somehow when I looked in the mirror, that was not the same image I saw in the picture, but pictures don’t lie. So I’m on a journey to lose 40 pounds.

As each month passes, I see the weight loss both on the scale and in how my clothes fit. But as I work through plateaus, I get impatient and research another way to increase weight loss, if only by an extra couple pounds per month. I’m currently doing Keto and tracking macros, logging food with calorie counting, and I’ve recently added Intermittent Fasting. Oh yeah, I’ve upped my steps and watch my calorie burn vs intake.

I guess you could say I’m passionate about losing this weight and possibly a little impatient with how long it takes to do it right.

I would also love to say I am passionate about God’s Word and my relationship with Jesus. I believe that, but the intensity I have put into this weight loss journey has me reconsidering the true definition of passion. Am I as passionate about Christ as I am about losing weight?

Psalm 27:8 — When You said, “Seek My face,” My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”

Psalm 119:2 — Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, Who seek Him with the whole heart!

How is my passion for Christ lived out in my day-to-day life? A few thoughts:

Take any other passions to God in prayer, daily. Ask for His guidance in what’s best and His wisdom on keeping Him first. Yes, I even pray about my diet. I want to be healthy, and I want to learn to stay that way. But I don’t want that passion to replace my passion to keep Him first.

Speaking of keeping Him first, I start every day with God in His word and prayer. Whether I have 5 minutes or 45 minutes, my day is affected by starting with Him. Psalm 63:1 — O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water.

Take every thought captive (“taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” 2 Corinthians 10:5). The things that come at us every day from news, work, friends, and social media can trigger other things placed in our mind that we have seen and heard. So every thought I have must be taken back to God for His insight.

Which brings me to the question of what I’m putting into my mind to begin with. What am I watching, what am I listening to, and what am I reading? Do these things make it harder to live out a life that is passionate for Christ, or do they support that endeavor. Just like an advertisement for donuts or french fries makes me think I’m hungry for these things, what are other influences making me hungry for? God or the world? Colossians 3:1 — If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.

Can you combine your passions? As I go for a walk, which sometimes feels like a waste of time when I could be doing something else, I have started using that as prayer time. I choose a friend or family member and pray for them in every way that God brings to mind. Then I choose another and another. Before I know it, I have logged the steps and burned extra calories while supporting my true passion of drawing closer to God.

What are you passionate about? What consumes your every thought? There are a lot of good things to be passionate about, as long as we remember the truth of what is most important.

What are you doing to increase and sustain the passion for Christ in your life? I would love to hear from you so that together we can encourage and support each other.