Passions: God and Music

Nearly everyday or at least every week, I ask a student, "What are you passionate about? What do you love to do? What do you think about? What do you find yourself doing in your free time? Etc. I thought these questions were pretty easy, but the more I think about them, I find them quite hard. As I drove home from work the other night, I started asking myself this question. "What am I passionate about?"

The dictionary defines "passion" as a "strong and barely controllable emotion."

So, what gets me so excited or emotional, that I become barely controllable?

The two things that come to my mind quickly are God and Music. Done. I am passionate about God and Music. There is my answer. But, then I started to think harder. If I was so passionate about God, I would be trying to spend every second of my day with Him. However, I find myself on Facebook more than I find myself reading scripture or praying for our troops in war, or adopting orphans in Africa, etc. etc. etc.

For music, I do find myself listening to music a lot. But if I was truly passionate about music, I feel like I should have mastered (or nearly mastered) an instrument, be in a band, or be spending my day researching new artists. Yah, I do that from time to time, but it isn't what captures my every thought. And the more I learn to play music, I find it is difficult and I lose interest. I want the easy way out.

This then brings me to thinking about what I do most often, or think about most often, or say most often, or laugh at, etc. And the more I do, the more I realize, I am passionate about Sin. I feel Sin has come into our lives and Satan pushes us to be passionate about sinful things. Things that make us lazy, things that fulfill our lustful desires, things that distract us from God.

I am passionate about Sin. However, I want to be passionate about God. Thus, I run, I pray for God to give me an undying desire to love Him and others. I pray God would give me the energy to seek Him. That He would fill my heart with an uncontrollable emotion to do everything for His glory.

And to bring this together...

Tonight I witnessed an older man playing the piano magnificently. He closed his eyes and played as if no one was in the room. Only Him, God, and the piano. It was truly beautiful. It honestly gave me chills. It was obvious this man was doing something he was passionate about. To make it better, this man had just recovered from 7 months of battling cancer. A cancer that could have taken away his gift, his passion for music.

Just thinking about this, inspired me to pick up the guitar and give it another try. Maybe I'll master (or nearly master) an instrument someday.