What are you passionate about?  What holds your attention and burns in your soul?  What would you do to gain whatever you are zealous for?  What keeps you up at night and doesn’t let you go to bed?  What captures your thought process when you interact with others throughout the day?

I believe that passion for life has been diluted in our everyday experiences.  Passion has been defined by a strong and barely controllable emotion.  It is an emotion that causes you to act in a dangerous way.  It can be a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm or desire for anything such as a passion for music, for a recreational endeavor, or an activity such as writing or reading.  I wanted to fully know this word, so I looked up zeal as well.  Merriam-Webster defines zeal as a “passion, server, ardor, enthusiasm with intense emotion that compels us to action.  It deeply stirs us to ungovernable choices and action.

So what are you passionate about?  What are you zealous for?  What drives you to uncontrollable action?  The reason for my thought process today centered on a passage in the bible that caught my attention.  It is a story in the early life of Jesus’ ministry where He went into the temple and found something despicable to Him.  “It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration, so Jesus went to Jerusalem.  In the Temple area he saw merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices; he also saw dealers at tables exchanging foreign money.  Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out of the Temple. He drove out the sheep and cattle, scattered the money changers’ coins over the floor, and turned over their tables.  Then, going over to the people who sold doves, he told them, ‘Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!’ Then his disciples remembered this prophecy from the Scriptures: ‘Passion for God’s house will consume me.'”  (John 2:13-17 Living Bible).  Jesus’ passion for God’s house drove him to the actions of herding sheep and cattle out of the church yard.  He overturned the tables of the money changers.  He scattered the coins all over the floor.  He forced those who sold doves to remove them from the premises.  He used leather whips to chase those selling out of the temple.  Uncontrollable.  Passionate.  Zealous.  All of the above.

I have been thinking about what drives me to uncontrollable actions?  Do you have that kind of passion?  Are you zealous for anything in life?  I do believe that all of us could answer that question differently based on our strengths, gifts and abilities.  I have asked that question to many people I come in contact with when they tell me about their profession.  Are you passionate about what you do?  Do you love what you do?

For me, God has put marital and family relationships in that passionate category.  I love to counsel.  I love to help people with their parenting and marital issues.  I take the time with any person who has questions about these areas and seek to give them guidance to improve their relational situation, whether I’m getting paid of it or not.  I love what I do and am ready always to help those in need.

On this journey passion can drive us to impact our sphere of influence if we take the time to identify what drives us to passionate action.  The answer to what drives us can be the first step in being zealous for life.