Well, here’s our final post on this topic.  If you missed the intro where we talked about Tool 1: Promises, or the post about Tool 2: Dreams, why don’t you take a few minutes to catch up on those? We’ll be right here when you get back.

If you’re already caught up, let’s dive right in.  God has given us one more tool to help keep us on the road of His destiny for us.  Believe it or not, it’s this:

Tool 3: Passion.

Don’t let your perspective become driven by mere emotion. Wait a second. I thought we were talking about passion? We are.

Your passion and your perspective are co-dependent on each other. Your perspective (what you value) determines the foundation upon which you build your passion (For example, if you value knowledge and learning, you will become passionate about education. If you value hard work and diligence, you will become passionate about your trade or career). However, if your passions become distorted or even perverted, so does your perspective. (Again, your hard work ethic could lead to a passion for making money, which, if distorted and allowed to run out of control, can reshape your perspective and your values. What began as a good work ethic may have turned you into a workaholic with no time for family and friends).

As one moves, so does the other. Perspective determines passion; passion shapes perspective.

This is why it is so important for us to keep our minds under submission to God’s will, renewed by God’s Word, and yielded to God’s Best for our lives – to have the mind of Christ. This is why it is so important for us to guard our hearts, the seat of our emotions. Our emotions really do influence everything else in our lives (Proverbs 4:23).

Think about this for a minute: Do we ever really have a “bad mood”? If I look honestly at the days that I felt I was in a bad mood, the truth is that one or two things triggered an emotion in me that then took over and influenced the rest of my day. Oftentimes, I will stop myself in the middle of the day and have an inner conversation like, “OK, Amy, why do you feel so cruddy today? What happened?” After a minute or two, I can pinpoint it to something… “Oh yeah, I’m still feeling uneasy about the way that conversation ended yesterday…” or, “Ah, that person’s post on Facebook really irritated me…” or, “I could kick myself for not getting up on time and getting ahead of schedule.”  The result was what I thought was a “bad mood,” but in reality, it was simply an emotion allowed to go unchecked. Oftentimes, once I pinpoint the source of the “mood,” I can resolve the unchecked emotion and change my outlook on the rest of my day.

We have bought into the notion that passion is an unrestrained, uncontrollable force in our lives, and that’s just not true. Many people have used unchecked passions as an excuse to do whatever their flesh pleased instead of living in line with God’s Word. From using a bad mood as an excuse to treat people rudely to using “God wants me to be happy” as an excuse to live in sexual sin, unchecked passions are a dangerous thing.

But passions are not a curse.

Passion submitted to God is a beautiful thing. Yes, it may mean you have to do the opposite of what “feels” right in the moment. Yes, it may mean you have to make tough decisions and discipline your fleshly nature to stay submitted to the Spirit. It may mean you have to smile and say a kind word when you’re incredibly frustrated about something else on your mind. But all of it is worth it when our lives begin to produce beauty instead of ugliness, self-control instead of being out of control, peace instead of conflict.

Today, let’s choose to submit our dreams and destinies to God. Let us seek Him, think His thoughts, and rest in the peace that He gives over our futures and our lives. As we live out this day and this week and this month, let’s remember these three things…

Seek out God’s promises. Dream God’s dreams. Guard our passions.

“Guard your heart above all else,
for it determines the course of your life.” Proverbs 4:23 NLT