What Has Been Your Passion?

Its been over a month ago since I sat down and wrote down what God had put on my heart. Tonight as I watched a documentary about Crispin Attucks High School in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1955 I was compelled to write about passion in someone’s life and what it enables you to become. The movie was about a all black high school and a remarkable coach that enabled these young men to reach for the stars and obtain what they dreamed. Oscar Robertson one of the greatest basketball players of all time was the leader of this high school team from 1955-1957. They were the first black team to win a state championship in 1955 and they changed the way basketball was played forever.

God has given each one of us the ability to dream a dream and to cultivate a passion to accomplish such a dream. I can’t understand why there are so many examples of people who have been raised without wealth, family support or many of a young person’s basic needs and have succeeded in life in such marvelous ways. Passion? Some people become interested in sports or whatever else may interest you and the drive within you compels you to exceed and excel in that field. I’m puzzled why some people excel and others find the journey so trying they find it easier to quit and move on. Life is all about passion…passion to love someone, to be faster on the field of competition, jump higher, throw farther, dance or sing to make an audience sit in awe, discover a new drug or technique to treat a disease, whatever God has put within you to enjoy, to be compelled to compete in, to have a heart to help your fellow man or to satisfy your inner man that you are indeed the best athelete, teacher or doctor. Passion is the driving force that seperates the want to be’s from the one’s who have felt the compelling thoughts to suceed and have conquered everything that has stood in there way on the journey to achieve those goals.

God created passion. God lived a life of passion. God surrendered his life if a incredible act of passion and he rose from the grave with a passion to set all mankind free. Passion is a powerful force. Once it has exposed itself within a man’s heart and thought life the only thing that holds that person back is usually the fear of failure, the stress created by training or studying to claim the prize. We surely have exactly what God has endowed us with, but I believe he’s given each one of us the realization of passion. The knowledge that you get out of life what you choose to invest into it. Story after story after story supports this when you hear of individuals who have come from nothing and are very successful,brilliant and wealthy. Every story almost certainly has it’s own journey, but I believe that passion is the fire that drives the person to succeed.

I looked up the definition tonight for passion and they were very numerous. The following one is only one of them, but it touched my heart. This definition was written by C.S.Lewis.

‘Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defeat of faith, but they are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the passion of Christ’

As I watched that movie tonight I thoroughly enjoyed it, because number one I love basketball, I despise the way the black community was treated in the 50’s and 60’s in this country and I love the passion these young men displayed on the court that carried over in the way they conducted their lives off the court.

God didn’t create you or I to be a loser or a quitter, but yet many of us somewhere during our lives have decided that when the going gets tough it’s a lot easier to move on then to face the conditioning it takes to succeed. I’ve always been a hard worker, but I think I had many opportunities to cultivate a passion for sports, playing the trumpet, being a manager in a office setting, excelling as a salesman, but I didn’t choose to drive myself to manifest those passions.

Young men and women don’t sit on the sidelines of life and one day wake up a elderly person and then realize that your passion for the things of life have passed you by. Sieze the moment. If it takes money, work that extra shift. If it takes studying, stay up those extra hours. If it takes early morning or late night practicing, make it happen. Whatever Satan puts in your ear telling you that you’ll never make it, it’s not worth the time or effort..it’s a lie. Satan knows what passion can accomplish, it defeated him on Calvary’s Cross.

Regardless of the sacrifice, make the investment. You can make it come true and with time spent praying, God will be right with you helping you show the world how passion can make anyone a winner.  Thank you my God and my Father for revealing to me that the difference between a winner and an under achiever is indeed PASSION!!