Stirring Passion

I sometimes need my passion for Christ stirred up! 

I am tempted at times to become spiritually cynical, lethargic, self-pitying, and discouraged. I can also be self-blinded enough to not even recognize that I’m being pulled into one of these wretched spiritual places.

I am at times so passionate for Christ that I’m stirred up! At these times I can’t read God’s word enough, I carve out more study time, I see ways the church can be the true body of Christ everywhere I turn, I see the fruits of my labors, and I’m encouraged at how God is using an average bald-headed guy to make a real difference in his kingdom.

I pray for more passion stirring!

There are several things that God is bringing together in my life right now that are stirring up my passion for Christ. I couldn’t be more thankful for them! Here’s the list. (It's not in a particular order and it's not exhaustive.) I’ll write about each in turn in the coming days:

1. Preaching through Philippians 3 (along with Dave Reynolds, my co-teaching pastor).

2. Watching God use my wife to impact a very secular university department for Christ as a student (while making straight A’s!)

3. Anticipating the marriage of my oldest child (who’s now a man) to a very Godly and beautiful woman (who has already become my 2^nd daughter).

4. Witnessing God grow our church into a local-to-world-impacting kingdom extension of himself.

5. Being submerged into the living, breathing, 3-D, HD, 1080p, Hi-Fidelity experience of God’s own historical account of his own actions in the world (and I haven’t even gotten on the plane yet).

God is stirring my passion for himself. Sometimes it scares me. Because these are all happening somewhat simultaneously, I get a little dizzy at times. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

As I said, this list is not exhaustive, but I want to tell you about each of them in turn in the coming days

God continues to cross lines in my life. I can easily default into seeing areas of my life as distinct and unconnected and God regularly reminds me that all the lines in my life cross one another. Like a movie that begins in 5 different places with 5 different people doing 5 unrelated things and then proceeds to reveal how in reality they are all connected to one another in ways no one knew by the end, God is showing me how he is directing the lines of my life to cross at this unique point in my life (probably in more ways than I’ll ever see). I can be a pretty slow learner, but he’s patient with me. 

It’s a new journey in many ways…