Does Passion Really Matter ? Should We Even Care ?
“One person with passion is better than forty people who are merely interested” -EM Forster
Should we even care about our God given passion ? Do you believe you have a God given passion ? In my upcoming book, Discover Your Passion, Release Your Power, we will be going over this idea in detail. I believe that we have a God given passion and a God given purpose. Both are essential in helping us to maneuver in this world full of land mines and distractions.
It isn’t difficult to see that with four hundred channels of cable and the life watching that is going on in social media, it is easy to get lost in other peoples lives. There seems to be a focus on watching other peoples lives and knowing all the details of everyone else’s life but our own. The reason this is a dangerous habit is that we are going to be held accountable for OUR lives, not anyone elses.
Just yesterday I was listening to a presentation by Christian apologist Frank Turek. He said that one sure way to be successful at life is the skill of learning to read and interpret the bible. Why? So we don’t waste our lives.
I believe God grants us a passion that is unique to help pursue and fulfill our purpose. There is value in discovering our passion and our purpose because they not only set us on the course that God has in mind for us, they protect us from veering off into directions that may harm us. Passion and purpose protect us from bad decisions and bad choices. If we are parents, there is real value in instilling this into our children.
The Elements of Passion
If you have made a decision that there is value in discovering your passion, one important clue is excitement. Excitement coupled with emotion. What gets you excited? What gets your heart rate going just a little faster? When there is passion, I believe there has to be some emotion involved. We are human beings with many different types of emotions. Emotions add spice to the sauce that is our life. They also give us direction and guidance when we are looking to get closer to our authentic selves. They are there for a reason.
Excitement and emotion are two primary attributes to look for when you are trying to discover your passion. When you are excited and have emotion involved in any pursuit, there is energy. There is a buzz. There is some measure of power.
No Passion, No Energy
We know from statistics that currently about seventy five million people in this country would change jobs in a heartbeat if they could maintain their income and their lifestyle. That number is about half of the one hundred and fifty million people that make up the working population. I am unashamedly one of those people.
If we have no passion for our jobs and we don’t get excited about getting up and going to work everyday, that is a big weight across our shoulders that we are carrying around with us. It leads to misery, drudgery and a total lack of joy. Do you believe that God wants us to be walking around with no energy and no joy?
Christian musican Rich mullins wrote the song “Awesome God”, a big hit in the Christian genre in the 1980s. Here is a link to that song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w2b033DXCw
Rich said, “This may be a cheap, but I’ll do a misquote of Frederick Buechner who says our calling is that place where the world’s greatest need and our greatest joy intersect. That God has designed each of us with gifts, with personality, with character. We’re each a unique person. And the world, we meet the world where there is a variety of needs, a variety of problems. And there’s a place where we intersect. There’s a place where my greatest joy and the world’s greatest need meet, and that Frederick Buechner would say was your calling. And I think that’s a pretty good definition of a calling.”
Clearly Rich is saying that there is a divine plan. God wants us to meet the needs of those around us, but in the power of our unique gifts and personality. Our greatest joy. Notice that he doesn’t use the word happiness. Joy is a spiritual gift. Our passion resides in the spirit. It is a supernatural gift. It is meant to be discovered, not determined. Just like purpose and identity.
An Assignment of Energy, An Assignment of Love
Here is an excerpt from my second book on power and passion:
Ask yourself, “what activities make me the most excited?” Pay attention to what you are talking about. That is an important clue. Are you talking about anything with a tone of excitement or buzz? That is where passion lies.
We all have been given a heart for something. A passion or interest in something. It is God given and it is there. If you have no excitement in your life, you may have a dormant gift or passion that is buried deep in your heart. Have you discovered it?
There are many clues to your own unique innate passion. If you know what your unique passion is, have you spent any time, effort or energy on cultivating it? Are you determined to develop your passion? Your passion will not grow and develop by itself. Effort is required.
The whole impetus to writing my second book came out of a conversation that I had with my friends at lunch. All I asked was, “what is your passion? Where does your passion lie?” The responses had such an impact on me that I started the book the next day and it was finished in about eight or nine weeks. The most important driving force to write the book was the idea that there are people who believe that there is no time to pursue passion and that pursuing it was a luxury. “I’m too busy working. Pursuing my passion is a luxury.”
Is that true? It made me think, “how many people in this country are living their lives totally ignoring their passion and their purpose?”
How you see your passion will determine your destiny and it will outline the value and importance of your purpose. Your God given assignment. When we ignore our passion, in essence we are ignoring our purpose. If you have read “Brave the Wave”, you know that I mention near death experiences or NDEs. One question that is repeatedly mentioned when people have a near death experience is, “what have you done with your life to show me?”
In my second book, I go over the idea that people who have undergone a near death experience tell us that at birth we are given an “assignment of love” and “assignment of energy.”
One other reason that this has personal implications for me is that I see this every day in my job as an emergency room physician. “Doc, I don’t have any energy. I’m tired all the time.” You wouldn’t believe how common this complaint is.
If you love your job and you could describe it as being your “dream job”, God bless you. My advice? Be grateful. Be grateful that you have a job that you love to show up early to and don’t mind staying late for. The statistics tell us that you are in a group that comprises about 14% of the working population. (1)
When we think about our passion and purpose, they are assignments of love. God’s love for us. He doesn’t want us miserable and with no energy. He wants us using our gifts, talents and personality, in the power of our passion, pursuing our purpose.
The whole idea is that when we are living in authenticity, our lives our powered, driven and motivated by our passion. It isabsolutely required to discover and release our Authentic Self, which is the entire premise of the Authentic Self series.
What is the “Authentic Self” ? How do we define it. Well, it is the person or self that God had in mind when he created you. It is the person you were meant to be, doing the tasks that you were meant to do, using the gifts and talents you were designed to use, with the love you were meant to share.
If you can believe and incorporate those ideas into your own life, you are on your way.
If you know anyone who seems to have no joy or energy, or who you think could benefit from discovering their unique passion and purpose, please forward this to them.
God Bless,
Have a Great Day !!!
Here is a link to a podcast interview with me and Dr Joe Martin that was just released on Real Men Connect,
https://www.realmenconnect.com/podcast/episode/c5a4abaf/422-how-to-discover-your-authentic-self
- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-work/dream-job-most-u-s-workers-want-to-change-careers-poll-idUSBRE96015Z20130701
Discover Your Passion, Release Your Power: How to fulfill Your Purpose in the Power of the Authentic Self now available for purchase !!