My passion

What is your passion? Is it cars? Chocolate? College football? Golf? Music?

Hmmm..as I make out my hypothetical list, it seems easier to identify outside interests that are typically male-dominated (except for the chocolate, of course!) than those that are usually pursued by women. Why is that?

So what are women passionate about? Their children? Their grandchildren? Gardening? Cooking? Sewing? I don't recall hearing women frequently using the phrase, "I'm passionate..." about their hobbies or even their relationships. A certain food or a particular place, maybe.
And yet, in conversations, in everyday dramas, women speak and act very passionately about a great many things.

So I ask myself (since I am a woman) what am I passionate about? To answer this, I must consider more than emotion or attachment. Rather, I must ask, What stirs me deeper than anything else? Moves me or drives me stronger than anything else? What do I enjoy more intensely than anything else? What is life to me?

I do get passionate about my kids, but I am not obsessed with their accomplishments or achievements. Everything they do, however, is of great interest and concern to me. They are a chosen priority. I am never neutral or disinterested in any aspect of their lives.
I must admit some passion for my own personal achievement. Continued growth, learning, accomplishment.
I can get passionate about really fine chocolate. An excellent cup of coffee. Real Italian gelato. The Grand Teton Mountains. Italy.
I love music! Anything I do is always made better by music. Housework is tolerable, if the radio or CD is playing. My worship is enhanced by musical expression.

And that leads me to my spiritual passion. Truly, none of my other passions would have any satisfaction without a passionate relationship with God. My children's lives would have little hope or significance. Personal achievement is shallow without eternal purpose. Pleasures found in this brief earthly existence can only whet the appetite for the perfection of heaven; the satisfaction and enjoyment they provide is so brief, so fleeting.

Although there are times when my words, my actions, and my fickle emotions betray me, the deepest and truest passion of my heart is experiencing the living presence of Jesus Christ with me, in me, and through me.
Nothing else really matters. Nothing else is worth living for. I have nothing to offer anyone apart from Christ living through me. I have no hope or value, apart from the hope I have in Jesus Christ and the value He placed on me when he died for me.
With Him, I have everything. I have purpose. Protection. Blessing. Significance. Favored position. Inheritance. Unconditional love. Freedom from condemnation and judgment. Power to live in freedom, light, and truth.
I am more than I could ever be on my own. On my best day. Or my worst. No, with Christ, my life is no longer characterized by the best I have to offer or by my most miserable failures: my life is hid with Christ in God. It is His best that I have now and forevermore.

And that beats any other passion, any day of the week, any place on the earth, any lifetime of experiences, accomplishments, and thrills.

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What are you passionate about? I really would like to know!