The Perspective, Propriety, and Priority of Passions

What are you passionate about?  That's not an easily answered question for everyone.  In fact, for some, it can be a downright difficult question, especially if they are of a less-than-emotional disposition.

Here are some questions to help further refine this self examination of passion.  What are your favorite things to do?  What are the hobbies you feel you couldn't live without?  What do you get the most excited about?  What do you get the most angry about?  What has the greatest influence over your decisions?  What do you spend most of your free time doing?

Passion is great.  Let me just say that now.  I'm not one to advocate a Borg-like, no emotion, purely analytical, approach to life.  When tapped and directed, there are few things that can fuel the drive to accomplish more so than passion.  However, they can also be dangerous.  They can be destructive.

So how do you learn the difference?

For me, it seems in part, that I must begin by rightly deriving where my passion originates.  Either I am passionate about something because I have developed a strong sense of belief about that particular idea as a result of my Biblical world-view; or I am passionate about something because of what I think it can do for me.

What is a good example of how that works?

A good example of a passion derived of a Biblical world-view would be my strong emphasis on sharing the Gospel with others.  I take that extremely seriously.  A few minutes listening to any of my teaching, or browsing this blog will make that pretty clear.  It is a passion founded chiefly upon my understanding of the Word and God's revelation of His desire to work in others.

An example of a more self-centered passion would be my enthusiasm for different kinds of pop-culture.  One glimpse into my office would reveal this, as it is covered in Captain America stuff.  Obviously there is not anything even remotely spiritually relevant about my love for nearly all things Cap.  It is just something I began as a kid and have continued over the years.

So what is improper concerning passion?

Passions become most dangerous when they are focused more on self-gratification than anything else.  I love video games.  This is another affinity for pop-culture that I began early in life and still cling to.  But, what kind of man would I be, what kind of husband, or pastor, would I be if I allowed this self-centered activity to interrupt or overrule the things that I am morally obligated to fulfill in my life.  Not a very good one.  A bad one actually.  I would be disconnected from the people that should be the most important to me because of my drive to engage in this self-centered activity.

I see husbands, fathers, wives, pastors, and students; I see people, who succumb to the skewed desire to live for and gorge themselves on passions beyond propriety.  Passions without perspective.  Passions given supreme priority.

It breaks my heart.  Wives living on Facebook and father's swimming in football, leaving their children to raise themselves on Disney and DS.  We are a people in desperate need of bringing balance to our passion.

Facebook Statuses are the New Christian T-Shirt

Image via CrunchBase

I am a very opinionated guy.  I try to hold this in check (sometimes) but do not always succeed, ok, ok….. so I probably rarely succeed.  I’m also a college pastor.  It’s my job to share the good news of the gospel with, well pretty much everyone.  I’m also a campus missionary, which means I raise funds from people who believe in what I’m doing in order to support the work that I do, and that I need to communicate those happenings with them on a regular basis.

When you add all of that together you get a recipe for a constant stream of religious content making its way onto my facebook profile.

Social networking is an interesting phenomenon.  We now have these tools at hand to post content, which hundreds of people can see the very moment we press [ENTER].  And pretty much everyone is doing it.  Opinions fly, poorly drafted diatribes persist, text speak abounds, and somewhere in the midst of all of that is a continual stream of religious spam.

Amongst believers the facebook status has become this generation’s equivalent of the Christian T-shirt.  It is something akin to that happy smile everyone puts on Sunday morning when they get to church.

This new platform, which isn’t really that new anymore, gives everyone the opportunity to suddenly broadcast their thoughts into the online arena of public discourse.  But should they?  When does it cease to be meaningful communication or thought provoking engagement; and become social spam.

I use facebook constantly.  The window to my feed is open for upwards of eight hours a day, and sometimes, much, much more.  It just depends on what I’m doing in my office on a given day.  For me, and my work, it is a constant streaming opportunity to communicate with those who are incredibly important to me.  It is a chance to initiate meaningful conversations, humorous exchanges, and opinionated arguments.  However, more than anything else, it is a chance to keep up with what’s going on in people’s lives.

The point to this, now too long, post is that I am tired.  The constant attempts by my brothers and sisters in Christ to one-up each other with the sheer epicness of their Jesus friendly broadcasts are exhausting.  Truly, there are a few people who’s posts always hold relevance, insight, and encouragement; but honestly… a lot of it, most of it, I just skip over.  I’ve already read my Bible this morning, thanks.  Or as one friend said, “anything that sounds like Lord of the Rings dialogue I can do without.”

I know.  I'm really not one to be pointing any fingers.  I'm as bad about this as anyone.  Worse even, probably; but I do try to at least weigh the worth of what I have to say.  This is certainly an area where all of us of the faith could learn, and apply, the old saying, “Less is More.”

Today

Image via CrunchBaseWhat does your day look like today?  Mine is busy.  Reeeeaaaally busy.  It's that good kind of busy that I often look forward to it, but that doesn't make for any easier of a day, just one that I will most likely enjoy more.

I couldn't even begin to tell you how often I open Twitter on my iPhone to see people railing about how terrible their day is.  It's no different on facebook either.  Some people are just always endlessly whining about something that has ruined their day.

Lately I've just started removing those people from my news feed.  I'll either unsubscribe, unfollow, or just block someone that is always whining.... always.  There are a few people I went to high school with that are especially like this, and it sort of serves to remind me why I didn't really care to be around them way back then.  Of course, there are several newer acquaintances that get the sharp side of the unfollow-axe too.

My days are usually fairly busy and even though I know I'm probably not always Captain Happy (Jamie would probably be quick to agree) I don't have time today to sort through all the incessant moaning and complaining.

Today is too short to fill it up with ill-influencers, negative news, and rotten-egg attitudes; plus, today is probably better than you think it is.