Identify Your Passion

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. (Philippians 3:10-12 NIV)

Passion is a gift that has been given to us by God. That is sometimes difficult to explain: articulation is slow to come. But as you keep doing what you are doing, then your passion is set ablaze. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wanted to become a professor of theology or philosophy. But he had seen his father stand up for justice, which lit a flame inside of him. Dr. King's passion was the liberating of people in order to liberate the world.

Passion lasts for a lifetime. But sometimes things unusual and unheard of cause us to reach out through mercy (with a peaceful attitude and conciliation). Are you able to work through challenging situations?

Your passion may not be immediately evident to you. It's not always easy to find. But we can't accuse God of creative malfeasance! One of the reasons we may have trouble identifying our passion is that we are always trying to copy someone else. God only wants us to be the best we can be. That requires continuing training and education.

As you seek to discover or to expand your passion, it is necessary to educate yourself about how to better prepare and perform in particular areas of giftedness. Education is important because it is not a destination: it's a journey. I think we must always continue to avail ourselves of new trends and megatrends. In the age of the computer, those trends are developing more quickly than ever! I am appalled to meet students who have been in college for two or three years and have no idea what they want to do with the rest of their lives. This means that their passion demands expansion. The recurring question for a person of passion is always: How can I get better in order to do better?

Another reason we may have difficulty identifying our passion is that we allow ourselves to rest in a cubicle of nowhereness. Many people can never make a successful life because they neglect to find what they not only like, but what they are skilled in doing. That is always a problem. So it is highly recommended that a person would discover his or her passion before setting out on a lifetime career of going nowhere. But you can't find your passion if you're not doing anything! Without identifying your passion, you live a drifting, empty life, like a ship floundering at sea ... going nowhere.

Skill and passion are just about one and the same. You can "want to be" all you want to, but if you don't have the skill, you won't be able to do it. I wanted to play football. I was good in elementary school sandlot flag football. I was watching television one day, and my mother told me I would not be good at real football. She was right. I didn't have the skill. So I became the team statistician: you've got to get in where you fit in! I was good at being the statistician, and I got to enjoy watching the others play.

Michael Jordan was a great basketball player. When he decided he wanted to play baseball, he was no good at it! He realized that he had no business trying to do that. But when he returned to the NBA, he won two more championships. Jordan now owns the Charlotte Bobcats. He is seeing his own sons trying to duplicate him in basketball. But they are not Michael, and they don't have his passion. It will never happen. As you make a decision, make sure that you have the passion and the know-how to do what it is that you claim you have a passion for. Find out early what you can't do, and then don't do it. People in church need to know where their gifts are so they can serve well. Not everybody needs to be in the choir!

You connect with your passion through your love of God and people.

But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Then Jesus answered and said: "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, `Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.' So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?" And he said, "He who showed mercy on him." Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." (Luke 10:29-37 NKJV)

The Parable of the Good Samaritan puts the floodlight on a rejected human being who has been demeaned and dispossessed. We assume that the priest and the Levite because of their religious responsibilities are hindered from helping this man. The truth is that they simply had no compassion. People who have no compassion will never find their passion.

Determine what really motivates you to move—that's your passion. Michelangelo painted the Sistine chapel because that was his passion. He goes down in history as probably the chief artistic gift of the Renaissance because he knew what his passion was. A trip to Rome and Florence, Italy will provide exhibits A and B that painting and sculpting were, indeed, Michelangelo's passion.

It is recorded that Socrates, the Greek philosopher, once said: "The first maxim of life is to know yourself." No wonder there is so much confusion! We are always trying to be someone else because we have not yet discovered what drives us.

There have been many great physicists down through the years. Such men as Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton stood out as the most profound and scholarly personalities in the scientific realm of physics ... until Dr. Albert Einstein. Dr. Einstein developed the theory of relativity in 1905 because his passion was physics. He lived and died for it. His intellectual genius coupled with his passion will forever place him as the preeminent physicist in world history. Many people are gifted intellectually, but they do not have the passion to follow through. Dr. Einstein discovered his passion...