It's funny that that's today's prompt, because today I'm not feeling particularly passionate about anything. Today's a day of resting and relaxing - winter break is ending in only a few days - and I don't have a ton of energy to expend on anything at all. I don't like talking about things I'm passionate about on days where I'm not necessarily feeling the passion, because I don't want to come off uncaring or even have someone not understand that, really, I'm an incredibly passionate person. (Or... at least I believe I am. I don't really play a comparison game, so it's always a weird thing for me to call myself passionate. But I do honestly believe I am. Okay, anyway.) But I'm shooting for it anyway.
After much thought, I think that I've come up with my top 5. But honestly, each one deserves its own post.
1. Living life for Jesus.
For a long time, I would have said something like "living life to the fullest" because I love living life and being passionate about everything I do. But in the past year, I came to realize something. Even though life will only be at its fullest when you're living for Jesus, that doesn't always look like what all of us want to call a "full and passionate life." My life has been less than full and often felt lacking of passion recently, and yet I'm still exactly where God wants me to be: living out life daily to honor Him and know Him better, completing my college degree, desiring to walk upright not only in my relationship with my beau but also those relationships with my family and friends, and spending time in my schedule encouraging the body of believers around me. Sure, it's not a great big emotional high - but! 1) emotions are fickle and nothing to base anything on, except to use as indicators of how you're doing on a heart-level, and 2) life is fullest when you're where God wants you to be, even if it's not exciting!
That being said, I don't want to not jump into something exciting or something that scares me or will challenge me. I think the biggest thing I'm trying to communicate is awareness of what Jesus is asking. In my life, many times already He's asked out of me the scary, the emotional, and the passionate, but just as many times He's also asked from me the dry, the anxious, and the weary. A you know what? Life is just as full both ways.
2. Everyone knowing Jesus.
The Bible wasn't written just for the individual to know Jesus - although it is perfectly suited to that role and fills it perfectly because God intends it to reveal Himself to us. But part of Himself is His love for everyone and His desire for everyone to know Him. I absolutely love the parts of the Bible that reveal His love for humans as a race. The fact that He continuously plead for Israel to come back to Him every time they strayed. The way He orchestrated everything for the birth, life, death, and ultimately the resurrection of Jesus. The part where Jesus defied the laws of culture in order to touch someone's life - we're looking at someone, an individual, being touched so that a whole group of people may be touched! Just think about the woman at the well. Once her life was touched by Jesus, she went and told everyone else about Him - and talk about the cultural boundaries that Jesus had to cross for that! WOW.
But, this also extends onto the level of the individual, because I want every individual to know Jesus. I want the girls in my small group and those who I aim to meet with regularly to have an even better grasp on who Jesus is than I do, to know Him better than I do, to have a richer relationship with Him than I do. I want the best for them.
Life is the fullest when we know Jesus, and only grows fuller as we know Him more.
3. Music.
Especially heart-touching worship music and - my past with piano shows up - the classics.
I've read a lot of articles recently talking about this debate in worship music between the songs that seem to just repeat themselves and are full of emotion and focus mainly on our response to God, and the songs that go back to things like the old hymns, are more intellectually based, and are mainly focused on attributes about God and who He is. Oh my gosh -- STOP ARGUING. For crying out loud, we need both types of songs in order to have a healthy and well-rounded connection with God and to worship fully. I agree with both points of view - and disagree with both as well. I could go on a tirade there, but I'll stop by saying this: find the worship music you connect the best with, and worship God with that.
Compared to that rant, it feels almost unnecessary to mention my love of classical music, but it's part of who I am, so I'm going to include it here. 2 of my top 5 stations on Pandora are Chopin and John Williams (Composer).
Did you know that music and math are related? The patterns showing up in classical music are based on math. Children who do well in math benefit greatly from music lessons - and vice versa. I'm "lucky" enough to love both music and math; most people only care about one and hate the other. But God still created the balance here, and it fascinates me. I can tell you way more than you'll ever care to know about the lives of different composers, the genres they wrote in (yes! classical music has multiple genres! as many and as diverse as modern music!), random facts about techniques often used to learn a piece, and more.
4. Staying healthy!
I'm not talking solely on the physical level. I mean healthy in each area of your life: emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually. I'm a big advocate for several things that allow health in each area, such as counseling, exercise and proper eating, awareness, challenging yourself intellectually, a stable relationship with God. I really could write an entire post just on this topic and everything I've been learning here recently, because "everything" feels like A LOT. A lot of learning. AND, the areas all interfere with and affect each other! Not being healthy in one area leads to struggling in the other areas. I'm far too aware of all of this. So, in the year of 2015, do yourself a favor...stay healthy in a well-rounded way.
5. Relationships.
Romantic ones are nice - real nice! this I know - but here I specifically mean real, honest, heart-to-heart friendships. Jesus made us to be vulnerable, and honestly, I believe that if you're not being vulnerable and bearing your heart enough, it's just going to close up. You're depriving yourself of one of the most important and vital things in life. This doesn't mean wearing your heart on your sleeve and telling all your acquaintances every detail of everything. But it does mean active and healthy community involvement - and with a community that is also striving to be vulnerable, know Jesus, know each other. There are very few things that hinder true growth more than choosing to be less than completely vulnerable to Jesus, and to the fellow believers and encouragers He's put in your life. Believe me, I have been there and I know.
Okay, so to me...all of this feels hodge-podge and thrown together. Each topic should have it's own set of posts and be allowed to develop completely. But, at the same time, putting them together also gives a broad picture of who I am and how I think. So, I guess it is what it is.
Happy Thursday!
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