What are You Passionate About?
I want to start out by saying thank you to everyone who helped us get the word out about Orphan Sunday yesterday. So many people shared our posts and I know that many of you were passionate about raising awareness of the Global Orphan Crisis. I also greatly appreciate everyone who gave to our GoFundMe campaign in honor of Orphan Sunday, and if you did not get the chance yesterday, just click here.
I think I have mentioned before that while we are in Haiti, texts and Facebook are kind of our lifeline to the states. This past weekend, because most of my friends live in the south, I saw nothing but posts about college football for basically 3 days (Friday leading up to the games, Saturday when the games were on, and Sunday when everyone was talking about who won and lost). Some observations from these posts are as follows:
- College football officials have a lot more influence on games now than they used to (just so you know, this is sarcasm, but people sure do complain a lot about officiating).
- I know a lot of UF, FSU, Clemson, UGA and Auburn fans but not a lot of Miami or Alabama fans.
- I find myself not caring at all about who wins any of these games (I didn’t even know Georgia Tech had beaten Virginia Tech until later that evening).
This is not a blog specifically about the role sports plays in our culture. The truth is, when I am home, if there is a good late game on Saturday night I will sometimes watch a few minutes of it and I still enjoy watching, talking about, and playing sports. At some point, however, my passion for sports changed drastically. I used to make fun of my Dad and for other men that, at the time, seemed old for not watching or caring about sports. Maybe I have recently gotten old, but there are so many other things that take my mind off of football now. For instance, this past Saturday when everyone else was watching UGA-AU, I was trying to figure out how to use the generator at the kids’ house because we had not had sun for over a week and the solar panels were no longer producing enough electricity. When the GT-VT (for the 4 people reading this who care about either of these teams) was on, the older boys were up at our house playing Xbox and hanging out with Elijah and Sophie. When Alabama played Mississippi State that evening, Sophie and Elijah had just gone down and the rest of the kids were up at our house doing our nightly service together.
It was not until after the kids left and I took a minute to look at my phone that I even really remembered who was playing this past Saturday much less anything else about the season in general. Again, I am not bashing anyone who likes the NFL or College Football, I am just simply commenting on how our passions change as we grow older. I used to plan my Saturdays around the Georgia Tech game, and now I have no idea what their record is or who they are playing this Saturday. Instead, I am planning for a small team that is coming in, getting ready to head back to the states for a while, trying to figure out how to raise more money for the orphanage, and trying to fix the electricity issues both at our house and the kids’ (for right now we do not have running water, but we have a guy coming tomorrow to hopefully change that).
With that said, the challenge that I want to make for myself and for you is for us to take a look at what we are passionate about. What do we plan our day around, who is at the center of our discussions and decisions, what are we teaching our children, if our checking account could talk what would it say about us, and most of all where does our passion lie. You see, if I am not careful, I can go about my whole day trying to solve (and by solve I mean get really frustrated by and then call someone else to take care of it) problems or thinking about how to run All Things New and never really think about the GOD who loves us and saved us from our sins and who has called us to be here. Let’s do a “Passion Check.” What are you the most passionate about? What do you talk about the most? Where do you spend your money? What are you planning your Saturdays and Sundays around?
“The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field.”
What is our treasure? Is it something that fades away with time or something that lasts forever and is worth sacrificing everything for? I want to live my life for the treasure that lasts for eternity, but knowing what we want is the easy part. The hard part is being faithful and persevering toward the goal.