I recently had a discussion with a friend about passion and intimacy…the kinds that make people feel alive! Passion that makes the heart beat faster. Intimacy that wraps us in an all-consuming, unconditional love relationship.
What if we were created with passions for the purpose of leading us to intimacy with God?
As a child, I didn’t understand passion, but I knew I couldn’t get enough of music. I’d play my mother’s Floyd Cramer vinyl records, and dance across the living room, leaping from couches and chairs. I’d sing along to the Gospel music that was most often played in our home. And when my mother would sit down at the piano and play pieces of classical music, I stood in awe, always wanting her to play just one more song. When I pressed the piano keys beneath my own fingers, I knew something special was happening.
Music made me come alive. It made me feel magical…like anything was possible. More than that, I look back and now realize my childhood emotions stirred by music were sacred.
The older I grew, the less attention I paid to how music made me feel. Of course, I always loved music, but I didn’t pursue what made me come alive. Common sense reigned…the pressure to make good grades, to go to college, to get a job…to become a statistic. The ability to create music belonged to others, and I was merely a recipient of their passions. Meanwhile, I grew more and more numb doing what I considered safe. {Seriously, I wasted thousands of dollars on a college education, denying what thrilled me at my core.}
It’s only upon rediscovering my passion and pursuing it that I’ve realized it’s exactly what I was created to do…how I’m meant to communicate with my Creator. I recognize His voice in melodies and lyrics. He speaks, I listen. I speak, He loves. Sometimes He uses this passion to save me…in the sense that it’s where I spill my heartaches and hopes instead of keeping them locked inside.
I’ve realized that I lack intimacy with my Creator when something stirs me, yet I neglect to apply it to my passion. For instance, there’s something about the sun shining through a stained-glass window that won’t allow my gaze to fall from it. There’s something about the time of day when the sun sets that calls out an emptiness, perhaps a haunting, in me. When I deny the feelings and inspiration those instances produce, I deny intimacy with my Creator.
No wonder we live in a world full of people who are numb…who simply survive one day, then another. Children with passion too often grow into adults who choose safety instead of risk. Adults easily create false passions, leaving them unfulfilled and without intimacy. To live in and from true passion is risky! Failure feels almost certain. But in those moments when we risk living our passion, we finally feel alive and connected.
I agree with what my friend had to say:
If we are made in God’s image and we have a measure of His passion and creativity, how much more is God and His infinite creativity? We can always seek to attain the infinite variety of His intimate love and creativity. Maybe intimacy is discovered in finding what makes us feel alive.
