Passion

This one is not meant to inspire. It is more of me rambling and working through something...

Did you know that the Bible doesn't use this word to speak of calling or vision, just lustful type of passion. So it made me start thinking of the equivalent word or situations. I thought first of Nehemiah. He had a passion to rebuild the wall of his home. I thought of what it took for that passion to turn into success. It was kinda worthless if he didn't put feet to the dream. Not to mention that there is no way it could get done on his own. He had to make a plan (which involved lots of prayer of coarse). Then he had to enlist help. He had to get others to join him in his dream. He had to allow it to catch on like a fire. He had to tell them and I guess in a way sell his passion to others. Is this how passion works always? Does it not go anywhere unless you take the intitive and (through God's leading) and get the ball rolling. By this logic it would seem that you can't expect others to feel what you feel unless you have put the time and effort into it that it warrents.

I remember being the lead on a ministry at my old church and getting so upset that others hadn't caught on and joined me the way I thought the project deserved. I was distraught. My pastor reminded me that God gives everyone the passions and visions that He intends and I can't judge them for not jumping on board. I believe he was right, but at the same time if I didn't do a good enough job of presenting the vision then I really didn't give them a chance to talk to God about it. I failed. If I did then I should accept whatever God gives.

It also reminds me of our current project 'The Well'. Man if Jason wouldn't have done the foot work he did then we would't exsist. I guess what I am talking myself into is that I am responsible for the dreams that God give me. That is heavy. If I don't go after it I never fail or succeed.....I guess not following God is failure though, so I don't really have a choice.

These thoughts were brought about by two things. At a recent meeting I was at the word passion came up a lot and later I started pondering what passion really was anyway. Also, by my friend Velma's blog, who recently discovered a passion and has taken steps toward releasing it upon us. She is a great example to me.