The Problem of Passion

I am a real feeler. Like, neck-veins-bulging, sweat-dripping, write-hard, play-hard, cry-hard feeler... At my best I am ravenous for God, and at my darkest I am a couch-potato with an attitude and a netflix account. 

Maybe you are too. 

Some days all I want is to be with Jesus; my soul is so delighted in and fascinated with Him that  I would rather read the book of NUMBERS than go to work. I would rather rock-out with my Bible-out than see friends, eat food, or have sex. In those moments my soul is so easily enraptured by even the tiniest tendril of The Gospel. Waiting on the Still-Small-Voice. Sitting in swirling thoughts of God's character. Trotting my way through the "cloud of unknowing" and into broad places where I find God behind every bush and within every gust of wind; not that I am an Avatar-Mongering-Polytheist, but more-so that each arbitrary encounter with the world is jam-packed with potential for becoming a divine interaction with the Divine Genius. Sure as shooting. Certain as death and taxes. 

And it's on days like those, when I am breathing fire and feel the warmth of God's breath on my skin, that I tend to forget that not every day is pie-in-the-sky with Jesus. In fact, when I'm not feelin' it, I often experience a very abrupt metamorphosis... like someone hits the Holy-Ghost-Brakes and I go from "pew-potato" to "couch-potato" in about 3 seconds.

Because, when passion is your greatest strength, chances are it's also the debilitating chink in your armor... Because, "Feelings are a fantastic blessing, but a terrible master..." @AlanFrow

When passion is your spiritual power-play, going Slow, Small, and Steady with Jesus tastes like medicine. 

But perhaps, in your zeal, you've done a thing or two for Jesus. You've led a study, a trip, or an entire ministry. You've prayed through the night and blown the shofar from the top of Mount Carmel.  Perhaps you've pumped out an entire book... and you should, because He is worthy of your all. But I know myself. And I know that my "spiritual-accomplishments" tend to carry me for a little while... And if I'm lucky, I can ride that high for a week or two. Until one day, when I am living in early-spiritual retirement because of all the "heaven-pennies" earned by last week's zealousness for God... and that's when it happens - the Slow, the Small, and the Steady catch up with me…  the relics of passion and zeal are still somewhere inside of me, but, like a ball-player reveling in the glory days, I am unfit and unmotivated to play today’s game. 

That's when you start puking garbage like "Do as I say and not as I do." We ride the high, like Jehu - a King who turned Baal's temple into a toilet stall (2 Kings 10:27), was praised by the people, and retired early. The last thing written about the young idol-crusher was that he died an old man who failed to finish well (2 Kings 10:31). A little anti-climactic, right?

I think when you are filled with zeal for the Lord, as I am from season-to-season… we tend to believe that our zeal and our accomplishments are good substitutes for the Slow, the Small, and the Steady. That a sprint can be a substitute for a steady trudge.

As if Christianity were some spiritual game of "Red-Light, Green-Light"... 

instead of a Slow, Small, and Steady spiritual reality that we train our souls to actualize within the day-to-day fiber that comprises the fabric of our lives. As if we didn't think of God as though He were a real person... Because a healthy relationship with another person shouldn't look like a 14-year-old learning to drive a stick-shift, but perhaps more like the Slow, Small, and Steady walk of the veteran saint that just won't quit - so that even during the inevitable seasons in which I am not "feeling it," there isn't any desire or force of nature that can distract me from trudging closer to Jesus Christ. 

So what do we do? 

Life as a passionate person can be a little chaotic. So here are four things we can we do to bring a little balance to our walks with Jesus... Four really really hard things that will probably elicit the death of our egos and a tenacious resolution to follow hard after God.

1.) Don't get too inebriated with your accomplishments.

Chew on the Gospel until you can honestly sing: "I will not boast in anything, no gifts no power, no wisdom; But I will boast in Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection."
Do great things for Jesus - do them and do them with all your heart. But remember that your accomplishments are only a response to Christ's astronomical accomplishment of healing the world of sin with His blood. Have you ever died for someone? No? Then you've got no reason to get overly-confident in how well you sing, write, design, think, or love people. Do it for Jesus, and let that be enough. (Ephesians 2:8-9; Jeremiah 9:23; Proverbs 27:2; 2 Corinthians 11:30)

2.) Be Devout. 

I want to be known as someone who is "Devout." Devout to my wife, devout to the church, and devout to Christ. But being devout doesn't exactly come accompanied by desirable connotations these days. And in this "easy come, easy go" culture we've cultivated some serious commitment issues. But if you're like me and you've come to grips with the dark-side of your passionate personality then "Commitment" might be just what the doctor ordered. "Devout" is the big-cousin of the word "Devotion"... so break out that old daily devotional book that you've read 6% of. Jesus Calling, My Utmost For His Highest, or The One Year Bible. Break it out, break it in, and read it. Every day at the same time. Before work or during lunch-break. Habitualize, internalize, repeat... Every day? Ya. (Psalm 5:3; Psalm 119:148; Exodus 20:8; 2 Timothy 4:7; Mark 1:35)

3.) Get on your knees. 

I enjoy writing. But it can be tough to remember that I should wear out my knees praying before I wear out my fingers typing. Imagine if, like scripture mandates, we would invest ourselves in "ceaseless prayer..." In season and out of season. Imagine. Doing great things with great passion for God would be a natural overflow... the norm.

And on the same note, it is God that changes the heart. So if your desire is to be steadfast, then just ask Him persistently to accomplish that work in your heart. (Ezekiel 36:26; John 6:44).

4.) Be Resurgent 

When you screw it up. Get up and go again. When you've wasted a week or a month or an entire season in apathy, just get up and go in grace. Time spent groveling is time wasted. Get up, re-fix your gaze back on Jesus and walk with Him. (Hebrews 12:1-2; Joel 2:12-14)

The Slow, Small, and Steady happens in every moment. It loves early morning coffee and thrives in late-night conversation. It happens at summer-camp, and it happens in the dead of winter. It crawls through "The Dark Night Of The Soul" tooth-and-nail, with unrelenting effort. And it climbs, hand-over-fist, quick and seamlessly, over mountain-top experiences. It's a Slow, Small, and Steady walk with Christ that drags a Believer to the Throne-Room, never to leave. 

So come on, you passion-people. All you zealots. All you fire-eyed-kiddos. Come and move toward Christ. Patiently. Perpetually. Unrelentingly. Slow. Small. And Steady. Come to the throne-room of grace and never leave. 

"It's not about you, it's not about how you feel, it's about God." @PatMcCan

jesus > sex

Tomorrow I’m getting married. And, like a typical dude, I’ve got something on my mind: SEX. I’m not denying it. But perhaps, atypically, I am not as wrapped up into thoughts of having sex so much as I am completely bewildered with thoughts of why, as American Christians, we are so obsessed with sex, and why we are steeping teenagers in a sex-Gospel like ticking sex-time-bombs.

Maybe you and I heard the same sex-gospel growing up: “SEX IS AWESOME, FANTASTIC, MIND-BLOWING, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH… BUT you can’t have it till you’re married...” Somewhere between the over-glorification of sex and the under-glorification of Christ we walked away thinking that married sex was better than knowing Jesus. And more than once I've whimpered to Him, Jesus, just don’t come back before I get to have sex, pretty please. The Sex-Gospel was the "good news" of guilt-free sex. And, comparatively, that's really just OKAY news... 

But the message I never heard was that knowing Jesus today is better than having sex. It’s better than sex with your girlfriend. It’s better than sex with a stranger. It’s even better than hot, steamy, monogamous sex with your spouse - And you don’t need to wait until you’re married to experience the deepest satisfaction that life can afford because you can experience the ocean of satisfaction that is closeness with Christ right-flipping-now! 

Not to degrade the fact that it is a life-long struggle to exclusively enthrone Christ at the center of our hearts, because it absolutely is; but the truth is that you and I can experience the most ravishing and uncompromising dimensions of “satisfaction” without ever having sex. Jesus said the way was narrow, not impossible. He promised "find" if we resolve to "seek." Our souls were not made for sex and sex alone they were made to find and experience closeness with God the Father.  The sex-side-dish is a measly morsel compared to our main course in Christ.

But if Jesus is not all satisfying then God forbid you ever live in anything smaller than a mansion. God forbid you ever experience hunger. God forbid you drive a beater. And God forbid you remain single for another minute. If Christ is not all satisfying then by all means, have lots of sex and have it now!

To say to a teenager that "sex in a monogamous marriage is the best thing ever" is to tie a proverbial carrot-on-a-stick to his back and have him run around, maddening himself with the lust that comes from staring at it. Until one day, when the carrot has become an idol, he rips off the stick and devours it. And that’s all. The carrot is not savored nor is he thankful for it, and instead he begins an often-vain search for something better than the carrot.

Neither has threatening people with AIDS or herpes resulting from loose orgies stopped anyone from having pre-marital sex; it will simply make them wear a condom. I’ve never met a virgin who on their wedding day said, “I only made it here because STDs scared me.” But give them something truly satisfying... give them Jesus... and the search for satisfaction rolls over and dies. 

To give this generation the gift of closeness with Christ is to give them a satisfaction that will never fail them, a satisfaction that lasts longer than a night of fooling around, a satisfaction that cries out to the deep of their heart and delights the senses of their soul with whispers of the Most High.

So I’m a virgin. And I haven’t missed out on anything. Because somewhere in the last twenty-four years my soul began relishing itself deeply in the deep of God’s heart. Tasting and seeing that He is good. And while it threatens and beats it’s chest, neither sex inside or outside of marriage can compete with the satisfaction I have found in Christ.

From the guy whose successor experienced every fleeting pleasure end-to-end and came back empty :

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is FULLNESS OF JOY; at your right hand are PLEASURES FOREVERMORE.
- Psalm 16:11

dismantling my claymation christmas mentality.

When we take away the festal racket of the Advent Story, put down our eggnog, set down our sugar cookies, and peel back the pine-scented veneer of one “holy infant so tender and mild,” we are faced with a very different nativity. A nativity without hand soap or a space heater. Medicate with enough gingerbread or peppermint truffles and you may forget the ugly truth altogether. Thousands of years of expectation trudged its way “South along the flatlands of the Jordan River, and then West over the hills surrounding Jerusalem.” After tramping 80 miles a very tired, dirty, and pregnant teenage couple found themselves marginalized from society, delivering their firstborn child in some dimly lit shed. No doctor, no pain medication, no epidural. The night our King entered the world was bloody and tear-filled. Mary’s shrill cries pierced a quiet Bethlehemian night. Welcomed in with tidings of infanticide, the Prince of Peace was the newest member of a refugee family. It was not a silent night. Not in David’s town.

I think it’s a good year for throwing my classic-Claymation-nativity-mindset back on the potter’s wheel of history... a good year for allowing scripture to flavor my advent-routine. If it means taking smaller doses of holiday cheer in order to savor the mystery of Jesus' birth, then I think I’m okay with that. God forbid Santa load me up with a little more coal this year.

This. Is. Advent... 

That God gave His Son to become subjected, dejected, and rejected as a human for the sins of humanity. His heart groaned with bittersweet paradox as the Treasure of Heaven met the Tragedy of Earth. It was tenacious and resolute. It was wild and lion-like. It was simple and profound love for humanity that compelled Jesus Christ off His throne and into a manger.

In leaving all the divine laurels of Godhood in Heaven, He managed in one fell swoop to drag His Kingdom to Earth. The manger-lain, cloth-wrapped, carpenter-raised refugee began walking the streets proclaiming, “The Kingdom of God is here!”

As I think of the adversity into which Jesus Christ entered that night, I think of the little boys and girls that have come into the care of Children Of The Nations. They identify with the birth of Christ in a way that most of us will probably never know. Marginalized. Impoverished. Refugees. Targets of genocide. Subjected to every misery of the Fall. But as children adopted out of the wreckage of human depravity how much more can they identify with the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in a way few can fathom! They have experienced the full spectrum of the capacity of the human soul. On the one hand a capacity for the fear and loneliness that comes from belonging to no one, yet on the other a capacity for the most immense joy that comes from belonging both to a family and to God.

Into the depravity of mankind’s darkness God unleashed the Light of Heaven. He released His Son and therein His Kingdom. A Kingdom in which Creation belongs to Creator. A Kingdom in which the misery of the Fall has become subjected to the glory of Jesus Christ.

He spent His life reversing the Curse of sin and the misery of the Fall, and He bids you and I to join Him in entering the brokenness of humanity to declare with joy the liberating fact that “The Kingdom of God has come!” You are an agent of His Kingdom – so enter into humanity’s brokenness, help reverse the mess, and intertwine your life with those who have not yet heard of the proclamation that rang out that night in David’s Town, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy…”

Let me show you what this whole thing looks like…

Rebecca was orphaned as a baby in the country of Malawi. She remembers the day that Children Of The Nations gave her a family. Today she has graduated from High School and is looking towards College. “God has consumed my life,” she said. “And so I hope to transform Malawi. That is what God has given me to do.” The person who filmed this short video recently asked Rebecca to share her favorite Bible Verse… who knew she’d bust out an entire chapter?