Passions and Desires

It seems like I have been confronted a lot lately with passions and desires. In so many ways, they are these big concepts and ideas that I cannot fully pin down, grasp, or understand. But there is one aspect with it that I’ve been realizing as of late.

Passions and desires are incredibly inconvenient. They don’t fit in neatly in life at all. It seems the world requires so many ordinary and mundane things of us that we allow ourselves to be subjected to. The world's obligations seem to max out our obligations but leave us wholly unsatisfied. Passions and desires aren't able to be compartmentalized. It’s not something that simply fits in a 2-hour time slot in which we can focus on it during that, and then move on.

A lot of my life lately has been of the organizational nature. I’ve had to be incredibly wise and diligent with my time in order to fulfill the obligations and tasks I either take (like Veritas) or others I’m subjected to (like homework). I’m thankful that I am able to do a lot of things that are using my talents and gifts God’s given me, and it is good. There’s a measure of me that loves the neatness I can create, my complex to do lists in which I can map out and plan everything I need to get done and do so, and the schedule I can easily follow. But, I’m honestly kind of tired of it.

I find myself overwhelmed with my passions and desires but feel like I don’t have the time to devote to them or to allow them to be manifested unless the world stopped spinning. And it frustrates me. My mind and heart is often so consumed with these passions and desires that it can feel like I’m just biding time in the things I do now. I know that’s not true, but it is hard to see it otherwise. I feel like I’m always waiting. That someday, there will be a time, but in the meantime, time keeps on passing by.

To some degree, I do understand these passions and desires in a broad concept. I believe God is leading me slowly to more specifics. But there’s a lot of waiting in there. There’s a lot of need of patience. There’s a lot of need in trust of God’s sovereignty.

Last quarter, I was really crippled with my passions and desires. I didn’t know how in the world I could possibly retain them, hope for them, live into them, wait for them, that I believe I became crippled and shut down. It’s been a long recovery process which I am still in to some degree. Sometimes, they just seem so lofty. Sometimes, they just seem too strong. Sometimes they feel naïve. Sometimes it feels like I am hoping for things that I shouldn’t, that I will be disappointed. Sometimes it feels like I am the only dreamer in a world of convenience, a world that does not lend itself to the pursuit of said dreams and passions.

I was crippled because the passions, desires, and dreams have always been so strong and I believe many grow stronger, but in waiting, my hopes just fell. The lack of manifestation of them in the present was rendering me disappointed. It just seemed so unrealistic, that I was trying to be a naïve girl in an adult world. In an adult world that doesn’t allow them or leave room for them.

But in the recovery process God’s been bringing me through, I’ve been reassured that these passions, desires, and dreams do have purpose. That I am not wrong or naïve to hope for them. As difficult and inconvenient as they can be at times, they are at the core of my existence, and I believe, part of my “calling,” though that’s a trite word. I don’t think the problem lies with the fact that we all have dreams, passions and desires. The problem lies in that we live in a world that doesn’t give room for them to be pursued or manifested. In saying this, I feel naïve still, but maybe God wants me to embrace those passions, fight for the manifestation of them, and allow Him to use it. I think the problem also lies in that we are scared to do so. It means change. It means embracing the unexplained, the things that aren’t readily explained and don’t make sense to others. I think sometimes we fight so hard to belong in an aspect we don’t need to. We don’t need to try and fall in the area of the commonplace. Instead, perhaps we are to be the first to stand up in a crowd, and be pleasantly surprised when many many more stand up with us.

In some ways still, I am crippled by the manifestation of said passions and desires, but God is leading the way. He’s helping me to see purpose in them. I’m now learning to understand and embrace them.

And hopefully soon, I’ll begin to walk in them.

Hopefully soon, this waiting time will be over.

But for now, He says wait. And I have to trust He knows what’s best.