LIVE PASSIONATELY
- Details
- Category: Religion
- Published: Saturday, 24 May 2014 00:38
- Written by Pastor Joe Flores
by Pastor Joe Flores
"Don't allow your emotions to cloud your judgment", is popular conventional wisdom that most of us are familiar with. Thinking retrospectively I can remember times when I applied that wisdom and I can remember times when I wish I had applied that wisdom more definitely. In business, management and the execution of tasks it is more often a useful piece of advice. Socrates, the father of philosophy said "Know thyself".
In my quest for the knowledge of self I have discovered a personality trait that is equally as dangerous as it is productive. It is a part of my DNA that is as either clearly understood or profoundly misunderstood. It is a personality trait that has lifted me to heights greatness and cast me down into the pit of regret. No personality trait has served me as well or as severely as my characteristic of
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passion. I am a naturally passionate person. I am passionate because, good, bad or ugly, I feel things deeply.
It is my passion that has lifted me to great heights of ministry dedication, community service and self-sacrifice for others in need. It is also my passion that has caused me to slip from conversation into argument, from commitment into zealousness, FROM reasoned rationality to heated extremes and worst of all to slip from unconditional love to unmeasured heartache. Passion was behind it all.
The funny thing is, that with as much trouble as my passion has gotten me into, I don't want to be delivered from my passion. I don't want to kill my passion, get rid of my passion, or have my passion so sterilized that it is no longer distinguishable as passion. What I do want is for my passion to live, to be fearless, to be consistent and most of all I want my passion to be wise and sensitively caring.
Like Dr. David Banner, better known to us as the Incredible Hulk, I want to use my passion for good and not evil. When I consider the big picture of my life, my God-given characteristic of passion has served me well. Although, periodically there are some painful consequences latently embedded in my passion's core, I am still not willing to allow my cerebral acuity to usurp to my fiery passion, something inside of me says that the risk of harm to myself is worth the value of a passionate soul. Mat. 5: 4 says, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."
I cannot know if my passion will ever again break my heart or cause me utter disillusion in someone or something, but I do know that if it does, God promises to comfort me. So inspite of the risk, I have decided that I will continue to LIVE PASSIONATELY. -PASTOR JOE FLORES.