A Passion for Thee: Reevaluating the Desires of Our Heart in a Passion Driven World -Part 1

“Oh passion…

Yes…

I know passion…”

For what is passion but a deep and at times an almost wrathful desire that only when you turn to look in the mirror, you find was only your own hands grasping at your throat and dragging you down into an aggressive zeal fueled by the deepest demons of your heart? Passion: what a fiery word that either gives us deep amorous visions or envisions the fiery clutches of our own drowning desires. Regardless of our gender, our passions define what lines and permeates our ever-beating hearts; what lies within the entrails of our twining and twisting thoughts; what pushes our last lingering breath to its final potency. Our passions can be the greatest movers and shakers and yet in that same breath the source of our greatest downfalls. Our passions can be the refining fire that shapes our lives or the smoldering behemoth that savagely and hungrily devours anything good in our lives. What defines passion for each of us is the beast we choose to cage in our hearts or the Master we allow to rule supreme. What is it that rules your thoughts and engages your mind? Are your passions a tool open to God’s almighty hand or do they cleave to your inmost desires that deny God access?

Now, without going too deep into explaining the necessity of passion, it should go without saying that without passion we cannot move to action; without passion we lack the words to say when words need to be articulated. To have passion is as God designed us to be. However, it is when these desires go unchecked that we fall into the wrong way. Passion permeates the world today and has become especially compounded through the accessibility presented by the cyber world. The first thing that needs to be addressed when evaluating our passions is perhaps, “Are my passions in line with what God’s Word teaches?” The apostle Paul was a man of immense passions. However, as we are introduced to him as “Saul” initially we see that his passions were used to persecute the Body of Christ because Paul assumed he doing God’s will for him while he was unregenerate. He failed to see that his perspective was not aligned with God’s design. After God’s intervention on the road to Damascus we see these passions reapplied and redesigned within Paul’s life. Paul was given spiritual sight whereas he had been blind before. God used the passionate nature He had planted within his servant Paul to accomplish much. The Gospel was spread far and wide among the people of the world. Paul regretted what He had done before his redemption and voiced out his shame for his previous actions (Corinthians 15:9-11), but what he focused on was continuing the journey for the gospel. Through God grace He created a new work in Paul, who was once a hinderance to God’s own people. Even after salvation we are so often similarly blinded in our perspective as to what is truly God’s desire for us or what is conforming to our own pleasures and passions.

Passion in prayer has been a reoccurring theme throughout the Bible as a reflection of one's relationship with God. We see this in David’s prayer life throughout the Psalms (Psalms 40, 80, and 69 especially stand out), Elijah’s agonizing prayers before God (1 Kings 18:30-46), Jacob’s prayer at Jabbok before encountering his much-feared brother (Genesis 32), Ezra’s prayerful mourning before God, and Christ’s prayer in the Garden. However, one person in God’s word stands out for their unusual petition before God. Hannah’s story begins in 1 Samuel 1 where we are given the context of her situation and current condition. She has pleaded with God for many years to bless her with a child and is completely consumed with the desire to have a child. This was so influential to her life that she sorrowed continually for her apparent “lacking” in God’s blessing. She prayed and yearned for her desire till she could no longer contain the sorrow and came to her ultimatum at the temple in verse 10. She pleaded with God to give her a child who she would give over as His servant. Was this the right kind of prayer for her to set before the Lord, or was this a selfish prayer of passionate yearnings that God, in His mercy, granted to His beloved child? In the context of the Bible as one story with many facets, Matthew 6:5-14 is very helpful for a deeper understanding of this passage. In this passage, Jesus sets the model prayer before His disciples. He starts by laying out the manner in which we should initially approach prayer. Verse five simply states that prayer should not be a spectacle for those around us to view or repetitious mumblings of vanity. Prayer is a reflection of the personal relationship we have in God. Verse eight gives us the assurance of God’s intimate relationship with our lives. He knows the things we ask of Him! Jesus starts the prayer by humbly addressing the Father and recognizing the respect due to His name. Verse ten shows a needed desire for God’s will to be done in and throughout our lives. He closes with verses 11-13 by asking God for the needs and desires within our lives. Simply put, this prayer is a complete devotion of one’s life to God. Perhaps, Hannah did not initially start her prayers as devotion to God until her final prayer at the temple. (This could be evidenced through the rebuke of her husband in verse eight of 1 Samuel 1.) It was there that she completely gave her desire and her heart over to God in verse 11 by saying “O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life”. She reverently bows her heart before God in homage and not only gives over her petition but makes a vow of devotion through the desire she had passionately prayed for year after year. Her heart was laid bear before God and showed herself ready in God’s providential plan. She did not demand but lays hold of God’s will in her life keeping her passionate desire within the confines of what God would do with her life. Without this great passion in her life she might not have continued in prayer, and she would not have been blessed with the child that would one day be a great leader and mediator between God and Israel. God cultivated this passion to be poured out in her prayers drawing her to depend and grow closer to Him. He foreknew and designed this desire and waited for Hannah’s humble obedience of her heart to fulfill His greater glorification.