I have never been able to play poker and win.  I don’t have a poker face when I play and all the players around the table know whether I have a good hand or not just by looking at me.  I have tried to keep a straight face, but people find me out.  My face gives my cards away.

I have another problem.  I can’t put on a happy face when there are things going on in my life or issues with my family that haven’t been resolved.  Unresolved problems negatively affect me and until they are resolved, my facial mannerisms carry the tale-tell signs of the struggle wherever I go.  My wife knows when there is something bothering me.  I can’t get away with anything.  My daughters and son know me so well that they confront me when something is affecting me.  I have never been able to lie and get away with it because unresolved issues alter the external parts of my body and those around me always know.  My passion for connected relationships are altered when those connected relationships are disconnected.

I have been reading the book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament and realized that Nehemiah had the same problem.  In my previous jlog, I wrote about his passion for his Jewish people who had been ravaged by war and were in disarray.  He wept and mourned and prayed for months because of his compassion for his brothers and sisters.  As you read on, you find out that Nehemiah’s job was to test the wine to see if it was fit for the King.  If the wine was poisoned, he would die and the king would live.  Every day he was to test the wine before the King would drink it.  After a few months of hearing about his people, the passion he had for them altered his external appearance.  “In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before, so the king asked me, “Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.” I was very much afraid, but I said to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”  ‭‭Nehemiah‬ ‭2:1-3‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Our passion here on this earth will affect our effect.  What we find as most important to us in this world will alter our emotions and cause us to focus on that passion.  Not everyone will become passionate about what we are passionate about.  Not everyone will be impassioned to save a certain group of people.  Not everyone will be passionate for giving communicative tools to marriages and families.  Not everyone will take every waking minute to feed the homeless.

On this journey, God has a specific purpose for each of us and will give us a passion for that niche if we are available to hear His call.  Be careful.  It will alter how you view life.