What If I Had More Passion

Tweet

Pin It

The house is quiet (except for the sounds of my husbands snoring :D). Everyone is asleep but me; even the cat. This seems to be the only time I can hear my own thoughts, so I've been doing some late night writing.

My husband and I watched a movie last night. Although I won't go into specifics about what the movie was, know that it was a harsh one for my soul, for both of us really. It's ending left us with some pretty strong unsettling emotions. Graciously, God gave us peace and we slept soundly. The movie however, seemed to have piqued my husbands interest in revisiting some of the major world disasters that have happened over the more recent years; the tsunami in Sri Lanka being one of them.

No doubt a major disaster causes a shift in priorities, if even short lived. And tonight, after watching part of a documentary of the sudden tragedy that took place on that island, I am left lying here wondering about my own passivity.

I've become really passive about life. More importantly, about the gospel.  About Jesus.

I remember the very early morning that God's glorious presence and life-saving power were made real to me. I remember it as if a video recorder had captured each and every second of that moment and replayed it right in front of me. There was no Sunday morning church service, or youth group altar call. No street preacher or special outreach. No repeated words of prayer. It was just me and God, in a very real moment, alone in the dark night of my bedroom, when I had just about given up all hope for my life. All the strength I had left in my heart said, "God please, do something."

And He did.

A photo of me before I was born again, thinner than I would be because of an eating disorder

Before a marching band festival taking my role as a hippie a little too seriously

The moments that followed, the very seconds, were incredibly and forever changed. I had just encountered the Living God! The days and months after that early morning were filled with such a love and passion for the God of the Universe that had pulled me out of the pit I was in.

Passion!

I had to tell someone what happened. I was sure, considering the record of my life before that day, that it would be believable. Even if it wasn't, it didn't matter. I knew what had happened to me. I knew the change that had taken place in the deepest parts of me, and so radically...so instantaneously. Even in the midst of fearing what people might think about what I had to say, I still had to tell them. It was too real, too incredible, to exciting to me to contain myself.

I remember that passion. Why, after all these years, have I become so...

...passive?

Trying to understand my role as a wife and mother has, in a sense, blurred my view of my own responsibility to Christ. I spent so many years living with the shame and regret of past mistakes; the constant struggle to understand love, respect, and submission; and the pain of countless disappointments. In reality, even though we often had disagreements, I had given that responsibility completely over to my husband. In my heart, it was now his job to carry the weight of our family's passion for The Lord. When he failed to appear holy and passionate enough, he reaped condemnation from me. If he actively sought The Lord, I was never vulnerable enough to encourage him, only chalking it up to the fact that it was his "duty" as the spiritual head of the family. (That is a whole other can of worms I won't get into right now.)

Family Vacation 2011

But what about my responsibility?

God gave me my own personal testimony.  A radical one at that.  He didn't give my testimony to my husband.  God chose to make Himself known to him in a different way.  He has his own source of passion and although it will ultimately point to Jesus, it may not look exactly like mine.  I spent so many years waiting for my husband to be what I thought a spiritual leader should be so I could confidently walk in line behind him.  What resulted was my own lack of passion.

“Judge not, that you be not judged.  For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.  And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye?  Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye." Matthew 7:1-5

And there it is...its just another form of judgement...

What if I just quit waiting for him to catch fire first? What if I opened my mouth to pray instead of leaving him to bear the burden?  What if I am the first one to strike up a conversation about what the Lord is doing in my life?  What if I made a choice to stop being so passive and reclaim the passion I had for my first Love?





I'm linking up with Lessons From Ivy and these other bloggers this week: