Ash

There was no evil to fear in the garden. It was a place of life and peace where there was no death, no fear, no deceit...that is until the day that Nectar spoke. He spoke words that sounded like honey to their ears. They were drawn to him. He was one of the most beautiful creatures they had ever seen. He stood six feet tall, with feathers like a male peacock and the wingspan of a dragon. His eyes were piercing...a green emerald did not shine with as much clarity as his eyes. “I see that you are enjoying the abundance of the garden. I love to drink the nectar of the fruit and feel the sweet taste of life flow through my veins.”

His very words made the fruit they ate even more sweet than they knew it to be.“How is it that there is yet another tree here in the garden, a tree that’s fruit is more luscious and more inviting than any other tree in the garden and yet it is forbidden. There must be some mistake. How can it be possible that you are not allowed to eat of such a magnificent fruit? Why would the garden give forth such beauty and then withhold it?”

As his words flowed into their ears, their hearts began to question. The woman looked at her husband and asked him, “Seth could you be mistaken in your belief that we are not to eat of the tree that sits at the center of the garden. Why be at the center of all things and yet be forbidden? Why give forth the most appealing fruit and yet deny every living thing a taste of it? Could you be wrong?”

King Nectar’s lips began to curve in a small grin of satisfaction. His words had done exactly what he had hoped they would. They had put doubt in the mind of the woman and he knew that she was the soul of the couple. If she questioned the man, Seth, he would not be able to stand. If Nectar had come directly at him, Seth would have fought to protect his wife and himself, but now with Lara questioning him, his resolve would quickly evaporate. If she doubted him, his source of help and strength, then he might be wrong. She was in every aspect wise, and he trusted her implicitly. Yet why did he feel threatened by the creature that stood before them, if she did not?

Seth instinct told him to grabbing his wife’s hand and running as far away from the beautifully, enticing creature as he possibly could. But that would make him look like a coward, afraid to listen to mere words. Words could not hurt, or could they? Why was he feeling so strange? He had never before felt this way. This was not peace and rest. It was different from anything he had ever known before. His hands were sweating and his heart was beginning to race. And the woman questioned him. He looked at her and said, “Lara, maybe I have been mistaken.”

Those words emboldened Nectar. He drew closer to Lara, and allowed the warmth of his breath to brush across her face. She responded as he had hoped. She leaned toward him and waited for his words. His words trickled into her ear, “What harm would there be in one small taste? In one simple bite into the most voluptuous fruit in the garden,” Nectar lightly took her hand and looked into her eyes. “What harm could there possibly be.”

As he spoke, his words took away any doubt she had about eating the fruit. Seth was mistaken. The fruit was calling out to her. It wanted to be eaten. She would have it, and she would do whatever she needed to do in order to bite into its tender skin. “Seth,” she said as she drew near to him. “Seth, please, let’s eat just one fruit. We will share it. How can one hurt us? Think of the juice running down our throats as we drink from the fruit. It is like no other. I know that it is special. Can’t you feel it calling to us to take and eat of it? Please, Seth, just one bite.”

Seth wavered. He longed to please her in any and every way he possible could, but this? Yes, what harm could come from one simple fruit? Maybe he was wrong. He was the keeper of the garden, why would anything in the garden be forbidden from him? They walked to the tree.

Nectar, watched with anxious anticipation. Lara reached out her hand. She touched the fruit. She felt its smooth skin. She was overcome by desire. She had to have the fruit. She bit into it and the clear juice ran down her chin, and into her mouth. What an amazing taste. It was just as she knew it would be, and then she held it out to Seth. He hesitated for an instant, and then he leaned toward her and he ate of the fruit. He too felt the sweetness of it washing through him. He wanted more. They did not just eat one. They ate one after another, like ravenous wolves. They ate and consumed the fruit of the tree, and then as the last piece was torn apart it hit them. An overwhelming despair, a self -awareness of wrong they had never known before. They lay on the ground beating their breasts, crying out for what they had done.

He laughed.He, Nectar, was no longer a creature of exquisite beauty...he smelled of sulfur, his eyes were devoid of color...they now consisted of ash, and when he spoke they cried out from the horror of the gasping sound that came from his mouth. He wheezed out, “I have defeated you through your own desire. Death awaits you as it has consumed me. You will soon be no different from me. Even now, as you look on me with such disgust, so too will you look upon each other. You will die a slow and eternal death, and I will treasure every moment of it.”

The fear that entered their hearts was even more debilitating because they had never known it before. Lara reached out to Seth. He pulled away from her, horrified at the smell of sulfur on her breath. He had been the one to protect her and now he had allowed her to lead them both to death. He cried out in torment as he and Lara turned to ash.

Knots

My bad mothering actually led to this post. Last night, as we were coming home from somewhere, my oldest daughter said, “Mom, my hair feels so smooth.”

I said, “That is what happens when you brush it every day.”

She then said, “Sometimes when I have knots in my hair it feels like I have a cushion to lay my head on, but with smooth hair it doesn’t feel that way.”

I had to laugh. She is nine and would rather have her knotted cushion at times than the pain of a good hair brushing, and there are days I would rather her have knots than have to endure the whining and crying that go along with detangling her very long, ballerina hair. I don’t like to inflict pain on my children on a daily basis, but without the daily pain, the knots that build up get larger and harder to deal with, leading to a much greater and deeper every few days pain.

I got to thinking about my daughters hair and her knots. It is hard to be consistent in parenting, sometimes it feels easier, more merciful to let something go…to let some behavior go unaddressed so I don’t have to hear the whining. I have found out though that the avoidance of the misbehavior, okay let’s just call it what it is, sin, leads to even greater and deeper pain in the long run.

If I let my son speak to me in a disrespectful manner one time, he will continue that behavior (sin/bad-habits are much easier to make than good ones are) until I stop him. It will be a much greater struggle to stop him six times later, than had I done it the first time around. Plus, his disrespect left unchecked always causes a counter disrespect in me. I respond back to him in sarcasm, which is sin, and a tit for tat relationship begins instead of a parent-child healthy relationship.

Our knots get bigger, become comfortable cushions in our interaction with one another, and we don’t want to deal with the pain it will take to brush through them, that is until we know someone else we want to impress is watching. When our appearance becomes a concern, we tend to try to work though our knots in order to make ourselves presentable.

So, when I get to the point that the neighbors down the street can hear me yelling back and forth with my son out our open window, I realize that others are watching and I better become the parent instead of the adolescent kid trading barbs with my 11 year old. Why isn’t it enough to know that I should behave as the parent, or even more importantly know that I want to behave in a way that will reveal Christ to my son, frustrates me to no end. We sure complain a lot about peer pressure, but we must need it because it is defiantly a tool that God has set up to bring about change in our lives. It gives us that audience we need to impress, and it helps us brush out the knots we have allowed to become our comfortable cushion in life.

The next time you are feeling like you just don’t want to brush the knots out, remember that the more they build up the bigger they get, and the more painful they are to brush out down the road. Consistent care of our kid's hearts may not be easy, but brushing out the knots in their attitudes will smooth out their lives.

Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled

People are hurting in our nation, in our communities, in our churches. Each week we seem to hear of more people losing their jobs, of co-workers filing bankruptcy, of neighbors struggling to make ends-meat. Despair is all we get from Wall Street, empty promises from our political leaders, and bad news from the media. We look to November 4th as a day that will either doom us for years to come or redeem us for the future.

Some democrats see Barack Obama as “the One”, others see McCain as the only one in the race able to defend our nations freedoms. Our nation is looking to a man, whichever one, to save them from these hard economic times, but no man can do that, not a great orator nor a military hero. No salvation is from God alone, and He determines who will sit on thrones and who will not.

It is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings. Dan 2:21

In 1 Corinthians, Paul says that Jews look for miraculous signs and Greeks for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks. The cross is a stumbling block to the Jew because they thought the Messiah would come as a conquering King and defeat Rome.

Instead, He came as a humble peasant. He died for the sins of the world and
was killed by the ones He was suppose to set free and by the ones He was suppose
to defeat. The cross is foolishness to the Greek because they couldn’t understand why anyone would follow someone, who came to the uneducated and the weak. Why would anyone do that if He was a great leader? What would Paul write today about our nation, our people?

Jews demand miraculous signs, Greeks look for wisdom, and Americans what do
we look for? (MONEY, MONEY, MONEY). We call Christ crucified foolishness because:

He held no property,

He had no wealth,

He wasn’t famous,

He died teaching that we should die to ourselves.

We don’t want some guy to come to save us who is going to tell us we have to do anything. We want him to solve all our problems, to make everything better, so we can have everything we need….

The Jews were looking for a political leader. Someone, who would not just set them free from Rome, but someone, who would also provide them with an endless supply of bread. Sound familiar???

In this trying time, it is easy to start looking to men to save us, to make everything better, but in the end “The One” has already come. He wasn’t real concerned about making us comfortable here on earth. He didn’t lower taxes, instead He said give to the government what belongs to the government. He didn’t give affordable health care to everyone, He didn’t even heal everyone He came into contact with. He didn’t kick the Romans out, instead He submitted to their authority. What Jesus did come for was to seek and to save that which was lost. He came to save our souls.

Sean Hannity always says, “Let not your heart be troubled.” And I would echo those words. Jesus is more than enough to meet our ever need, even if the guy you don’t want to be president is elected. He can bring good out of just about any situation.

All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purposes. Romans 8:28

One Day

My daughter was in a car wreck with my Mom about six months ago. She was sitting in the backseat, my other little girl was in the front (older car, no airbags), when the accident took place. No one was injured, just bumps and bruises, but the car looked really bad. When the ambulance arrived, the medics strapped everyone down to backboards and transported them to the hospital. This was the most traumatic part of the whole wreck.

Since that day, my daughter has been rather nervous riding in the car. She watches constantly out the window, flinching every time someone pulls out in front of us, no matter how far away they might be. She has become frightened in other areas of her life as well, and at times does not want to even ride her bike because she is afraid something might happen.

Today, we were driving to ballet class, and a truck turned at a light in front of us. There was never any danger of us hitting him, or him us, but my daughter gasped and said, “Why did he do that?”

I said, “He had plenty of room. It was fine that he turned at the light. It is okay, you don’t need to worry.”

I tried to hide my frustration, but I am sure a little of it came out. You see, for the past many months we have been comforting her, assuring her, and calming her down every time we rid with her in the car. It has gotten to the point that she is questioning our driving as well as the driving of everyone around us. Thankfully, today, the Lord gave me wisdom instead of angry frustration to share with her.

As she asked why that truck turned in front of us, the fact that she has only been in one car accident entered my mind. I asked her how many car wrecks she was in.

She said, “One.”

I then asked, “How old are you?”

She said, “Nine.”

I responded, “How many days a year do you ride in the car.”

She said, “About every day.”

Finally I said, “Well, there are about 365 days in a year, and you are nine. So, nine times 360 (taking off some for days not in the car), is 3240 days. You have had one day with one accident, so 3239 days have had no accidents, right?”

She said, “Right.”

I said, “So should you always be worrying you will have an accident or should you look at all the days you haven’t had an accident?"

I then heard her voice, lighter than I have heard for awhile, say “Oh, but I am worried about the next time.”

I said, “Honey, don’t worry about the next time, think about all the times you haven’t been in a wreck. Think on those things.”

All of us tend to be like my little girl, at least some of the time. One painful event, one harmful person, one agonizing experience traps us for years to come. We wait, looking for that car that is going to hit us, all the while missing the hundreds of cars driving around us and with us safely. We so want to be ready for the pain that we live the pain over and over again hoping that will somehow help us avoid it before it hits us the next time. We start obsessing, playing things out in our head, replaying the wreck and for some very strange reason we take comfort in doing that. Somehow, we feel like we have control because at least in that situation we know the outcome.

That is the exact opposite of what God wants from us and for us though. He said in Matt. 6:33-34: Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all the other things will be given to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

No matter how much we worry, obsess, or try to avoid pain, we can’t add another day to our lives. We can only live the moment we are in, and if we look up from our pain, our fear for long enough we might just be able to see the big picture; all the wonderful, safe, good days we have had. Sadly though, we end up living in the past pain, worried about a future event that in all probability won’t happen. We focus on the one wreck, and miss the other 3239 days of safety.
I pray that my little girl’s relieved, “Oh, but….” will be a move in the right direction, and that she can sit in the car like any other little girl and feel safe.

If there is a pain day that your life is centered around, I pray that you would count the number of your days and place those painful moments inside the context of all the entirety of your life. Wouldn’t it be so much better if we could see the world from that vantage point, instead of from the prison one day built for us.

Twilight

Boys, girls, doesn’t really matter. They are looking for the same thing; the only difference is in where they try to find it. They want to be loved, to feel important, and to be valued. They want to feel whole. In the end, it is God they are looking for, but instead of going to the real thing, they head to one another.

I know that God made Adam and said, “it isn’t good for man to be alone,” so He made Eve to complete Adam. It kind of fits then that man would look to woman and woman to man to find their completer. So maybe before the fall, Adam and Eve did fully make one whole. In their complete state, they could have perfect fellowship with one another, as they walked with God. But since then, things haven’t gone so well in the completeness realm, and when a boy looks to a girl to perfect him, he tends to look at a girl, not walk with the girl. And when a girl runs to a guy to find her whole self, she tends to make him her everything and that just doesn’t work in a fallen world.

The newest rage among young girls is the Twilight series. It is marketed to teens as a wonderful romance. Now boys aren’t going to read about the beautiful Edward, the one who perfectly, and self-sacrificially loves Bella. No, this series of novels is solely for the consumption of teen girls, who believe that prince charming is real. In Twilight, they are sold on a prince who willingly denies himself, for the well-being of his beloved. He overcomes his own temptations and desires to keep her safe and wholly undefiled. Bella, the heroine, is constantly in danger and her beloved Edward is always there to save her, even when he isn’t there. He lives in her mind at times, a type of memory always guiding, always protecting.

Sounds great right, a guy who isn’t after that “one” thing. A guy who places his love for a woman above his own selfish desires, who could ask for anything more? I mean, he sounds like he is right out of a Barlowgirl song, but there is a catch. Wonderful, beautiful, noble Edward is a vampire. His desire for Bella is not sexual as much as it is carnivorous. He wants to eat his darling Bella, and on a few occasions has to run out of the room to keep from killing her. Not exactly, the kind of guy we want to see our daughter bring home for dinner, but Edward Cullen is the hero of these books.

He and his “family” are good vampires. They abstain from human flesh and hunt animals to feed their blood thirsty appetite. This ability to overcome their nature is one of the books most compelling narratives. Edward is a man who sincerely loves, and Bella is overwhelmed by how much he cares about her. He is all a girl could want; that is if she is not bothered by the fact that he is a walking corpse. When Bella describes his touch, she says it is cold and hard. Edward finds peace and rest in the warmth that lives inside Bella, the lifeblood that flows through her veins, and that is one of the reasons he will not make her into a vampire. He also believes that vampires are the undead, and therefore damned. In his uprightness, he refuses to condemn Bella to eternal damnation.

Edward has a noble character, and if it was simply that he were a vampire, the books might not be seen as harmful to the virtue of teen girls. But the books don’t leave Bella and Edward at that warm, romantic level. There is no actual sex between these two characters in the first book, but the sensual sparks that fly between them stir emotions and feelings that are best left to the marriage bed. Edward’s breathe on Bella’s hair, Bella’s warmth against Edward’s chest, their constant physical closeness and discovery could cause sensations to arise in a young teen’s body that would best be left unstimulated.

But that stimulation is what drives girls to run from store to store looking for the next book in the series. They are driven by Edward’s perfection and want Bella to find more of him in the next book. One fourteen year old, I was with at a girls day at the mall kept asking if the mall had a bookstore because she needed to buy the next book. She was consumed the whole day by her desire to join a world of darkness because she had become so deeply attached to the characters.
We would never willingly buy soft porn for our sons to keep under their beds, to fill their minds with false images of women, who are airbrushed copies of the real thing. Why would we buy books for our daughters that fill their minds with unrealistic imitations of the real thing?

When Adam and Eve fell, they lost their ability to complete one another. They no longer had a perfect relationship with one another, because they no longer walked in complete wholeness with God. They were missing their center, they were missing their God, and that is when they started to look to one another to meet their most basic need for relationship. A need that in their imperfect state, neither could ever satisfy and it is because that need is so strong that the Twilight series is doing so well, that is why lonely women watch Soap Operas daily, that is why pornography is rampant in the lives of our men.

Men and women try to meet that need for intimate relationship, and when their lover fails to meet it, they look elsewhere, believing there was a deficiency in the one they were with, but the deficiency is not with their lover. No, it is with them. Jesus is the lover we are looking for in books, in movies, in relationships, in photographs. Apart from an intimate, living, passionate relationship with Him, there is no other relationship that will ever complete any of us.

Fetal Position

“Are you going to get out of the fetal position today,” these words reverberated through my head as I got up to walk my dog this morning. I think they were from the Lord, but not 100% sure. It sounds like something He might say to me, especially since I’ve been in the poor me state for a few weeks.

I changed churches, gave up my position as Bible study teacher, my safety as a member of a great women’s ministry team, had one of my closet friendships change, and been crushed in my hope to write a book. I mean there are a lot of people out there hurting way more than I am, so the crying over my “loss” seems really rather sad. But when a hope is deferred, no matter what the hope is, the heart gets a little bit sick.

The other factor in my moping is that I have not felt the Lord’s presence in my life. That close community of spirit that radiates through my soul warming my inner man like the sun warms my face on a clear October morning. I realized just the other day that it is the loss of His presence that is breaking my heart more than anything else.

If God’s hand is absent, what is the point of a Christian’s existence? I can try all day long to live a godly life, to teach the Bible, to write inspiring posts on my blog, but in the end there is absolutely no fruit without the Jesus. His working through me has been missing for a while now. That is why I resigned from women’s ministry, and stopped teaching Bible studies.

At the time, I thought those were the areas He was no longer blessing and that He was moving me into a “bigger and better” arena of ministry. With the book proposal rejections and no one calling for me to speak at any of their events, I started to realize that those ideas might have been just that, ideas. I started to sense that I had moved out on my own, not just from those I had once ministered with, but moved out on my own from my Father.

My many layers of depression are rooted in His absence.

My spiritual “fetal position” has lasted awhile now because I have chosen not to make everything, including myself, seem all right. I know the tools I have used in the past to fix myself. I read my Bible in the morning, ask God to bless my day and the day of those I love and those I don’t love as much. I fulfill my responsibilities to my family, friends and church, and my activity level makes me “feel” like I am walking in the Spirit. I get a “spiritual” shot in the arm, a sense of self-worth because I am doing stuff for the Lord. Funny though, I can do all I want, but all that doing doesn’t work if my goal is to restore my friendship with God.

You see, I know this, because I have tried to make myself feel better in Jesus a hundred times. I decided this time I wasn’t going to try to “make” anything happen. I decided to mourn my losses, to wait on God’s Spirit to move in me, not to fix myself, and the cool thing is that the Lord is okay with that. He doesn’t want us to pull ourselves up by our boot straps. He hasn’t pushed me, He hasn’t rushed me to be better. Now, I have been tempted time after time to “get back in the game,” but I have tried to resist that temptation.

I’ve been too depressed to actually realize all of this, and I am thankful that my sadness finally demobilized me long enough to cause me to know I was missing Him. I don’t want to move forward without His presence, I need Him more than I need anything or anyone else. I need Him more than I need to serve Him, I need Him more than I need to know my place in the world around me, I need Him more than I need to fit in, I need Him more than I need to be active or seem important. I need Him more than I need to eat, more than I need to breathe, more than I need my heart to beat. I need Him.

So, when I heard His words today, “Are you going to get out of the fetal position.” I knew He was talking to me again, or at least I could finally hear Him. I was a little surprised at the words, but not at the meaning behind them. I looked up and said, “Ya, Lord. I think I am ready. I think I am ready to walk with You today.”

Passion Part 4: Unchecked

Passion can be a wonderful thing. It can move us past complacency and cause us to care about something or someone more than we care for ourselves. It can grow people into leaders, it can transform countries, it can move mountains, but if it is not lived out in godliness it can become a powerful and a times destructive force.

The Scriptures tell us that Jesus set His face toward Jerusalem the week before the crucifixions. It basically means, He had an iron will to carry out the Father’s plan and nothing could distract Him from the His path. Jesus’ sacrificial offering on the cross for all mankind is known as the Passion. He was absolutely in union with the Father in their love for the world and willingly gave up His live because of that love. Jesus is the perfection of Passion, and is the example of a passion lived out from the heart of godliness.

This is the kind of passionate life most Christians want to live. They want to do the Father’s will, they want to sacrificially give of their lives to others, and they want to ensure that nothing taints the name of Jesus. This, however, is where things can get a little sticky, where Jesus never missed the mark but where too often we, as Christians, tend to.

Passion is defined as, “Intense emotion; intense or overpowering emotion such as love, joy, hate or anger; a strong liking or enthusiasm for a subject or activity; the object of someone’s intense interest or enthusiasm.” Passion in and of itself is a natural response, and at time a very good and stimulating emotion, but when taken too far, when not checked by reason or patience, passion can be detrimental.

This said, passionate people are fun to be around, they add energy to causes, they draw people to themselves, they ignite interest and they are interesting. Passionate people tend to be leaders, driven by their vision of what could be, of what should be. This is what can make them dangerous to themselves and others. If all of life is lived with such intensity, there is little time for quiet, for God to direct and lead. It is passion without wisdom that causes the most damage in our world.

Unchecked passion, too often is called zeal for God, defense of the faith or standing up what is right. Recently, I heard Beth Moore say, and I believe it to be true, that no one has ever one anyone to their side through arguing. Now there is a difference between honest, open conversation, persuasion to ones point of view and argumentative debate. The first is a sharing of ideas in a respectful manner, not concerned with winning the day, but instead with loving the heart. The other is a take no prisoners mentality, with the goal to dominate the discussion and conquer the opponent.

Saul was passionate. He loved God’s Law with all of his heart; a Hebrew among Hebrews, a Pharisee, blameless as to the Law, and devoted to keeping the purity of the Jewish faith. He was a devoted to God. He would stand up for, defend and protect all that Moses had taught, even if he had to kill people to do it. He was a defender of the faith. He stood up for what was right, but he lacked love. Now, Saul would have said that was not true. He no doubt believed that he loved the Lord, his God with all of his heart, soul, mind and strength, but John wrote:

If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone
who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has
not seen. 1John 4:20

Saul stood by and held the coats of those who stoned his fellow Jew, his brother, Stephen. Saul was passionate about the Law and thought that equaled passion for God, but passion without love, is hate. It was the Saul, who finally surrendered his passion for truth, his vision for the world for love who wrote:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am
only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and
can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move
mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor
and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
1Cor.13:1-3

Too often, I find myself in a place of passion, that is zealous for a semblance of the truth, the truth of God as I perceive it. I often feel, as Paul did, that I must defend my Father. That I must stand up for what is right, and convince others to my view, even if I need to argue that point of view. I can be a persuasive, debater. Laying out a case for my position with clear and distinct examples arguments. I can win a room if I work hard enough, think long enough, and speak passionately enough. At the time, in the heat of the moment, I am sure that I am fighting the fight to defend the name of Jesus, to protect the God I love, or say that I love.

Sadly, it is only as I stand in the wake of my own zeal that I realize that I acted from passion that lacked love. As my heart stills, as I look around at the chaos that was derived from the argument, I understand that I allowed a self-pleasing passion, drive what I thought was a God-pleasing one. It is then, in those moments when I hear my Father’s voice, when I am alone in the after emotion of passion, which He says to me, “I can take care of My Own name, Heather. I have called you simply to love Me not defend me.”

Of course, that is when I tell Him, that love equals loyalty, and loyalty defends those it loves. But what I have discovered, I was going to say learned, but I keep making the same mistake of living out passion without wisdom, so I can’t say that I have learned the thing I have discovered yet, is that too often I value loyalty to an idea, an ideal, an institution, a belief, a person or group of persons, above love.

We all have ideals we live by, virtues that we hold too as we set up our own internal system of right and wrong. We, as individuals, have values that are more important to us than others are. For one of my friends, honest is the basis to judge all other things or people. For another an attitude of joy is highly valued, for another it is devotion, and to another kindness is the most important quality someone can show. For me, loyalty is at the top of my list. The trouble is that all of these qualities are important, they all make up morality, they are all attributes of God, but when they are placed in an order of significance, they get out of balance and when that happens they turn into our passion, not God’s character in us. There is a need for honest, for joy, for devotion, for kindness, for loyalty, but without love, they are a clanging cymbal, because the greatest of these is love. This is because God is love, and in Him, there is no darkness.

You see, passion lived apart from love is radicalism, is and always will be only an ism. It is not faith, it is not God’s heart, it is our zeal. It is destructive and unchecked it can lead to horrendous acts against those who do not have the same value ranking as we do. We must live in the spirit so that the desires of our flesh do not lead us into sin.

Passion is not the value we must live by instead it is love. We know we are off track, when our passion will conquer anyone who does not agree with us, when we will destroy someone to ensure that we win the day.