Passionate Faith

I just want to know you better, know you better, know you better now...

All I know is we said hello
So dust off your highest hopes
All I know is pouring rain
And everything has changed
All I know is a new found grace
All my days, I'll know your face
All I know since yesterday is everything has changed

Everything has changed - Taylor Swift.

Ever think about what motivates you to do the things you do.
Sometimes it's necessity, sometimes obligation, sometimes, perhaps, a sense of doing what's right (doing our 'good deed for the day'), but life would be pretty drab if all our actions merely sprang from a field so one dimensional.

I've been thinking a fair bit of late about worship (talked about in my 18th July post). When reading up on this again, I came across a definition of Christian Worship which defined it - on our part - as "Extravagant love and extreme submission to the Holy One",  which left me somewhat deflated. How do I, with all my weaknesses and failings, really give such total love and devotion to someone?

The thread which ties the connection to both these issues (motivation and devotion) together came up a couple of times this month for me - both at work and whilst creating photographically. On a recent shoot, I had the opportunity to provide the means for someone else to spend a day trying new ideas and creating images without being too limited by the constraints they were expecting (time, facilities, etc). It was truly wonderful to see them totally engaged with the opportunity, providing a rich period of creative work that they clearly enjoyed. Then, at work this last week, my manager was informing me how she'd been able to really give confidence to a work colleague, and I knew exactly what she meant, as I'd been able to do exactly the same for the same person on another matter (photography - surprise, surprise).

One of the most fulfilling things we can do in life is facilitate moments when we allow another to truly either gain or express the confidence to step out and achieve something meaningful and worthwhile - what a change that brings. They become more, because something deep within them has been allowed to flourish, and the result is marvelous to behold.

We can often treat the Christian life purely as duty - a series of things we must do, so we're 'not like other men', but that's very different to a life which ignites in us a deep longing, an over-riding passion, to be in our Father's courts, reveling in His being amongst us in His Son, knowing that all our deepest springs of joy and delight our only found in His fathomless love towards us, which makes us free to live and once more delight in all His goodness. That manner of passion readily brings a deep giving of one to another, because it derives from a true understanding of the one loved, who has given Himself totally to us and for us.

Scripture tells us we have such a one who knows our weaknesses, and that we can draw close, with total confidence, to Him, always finding aid and mercy in our times of great need (Hebrews 4:15, 16).

Being devoted or worshipful becomes hard work when we spend our time looking towards the mess that we usually are, rather than to the one who has truly made us His own (and, consequently, blessed us with all spiritual blessings found in Him). The joy is that He's not standing there, distant and aloof, but closer than a brother, calling us, encouraging us to leave our frail ego's and come, without anything but His grace, made ours especially at the Cross, to be loved and to share that love.

The results of our truly knowing this, and living within that embrace, are all that counts.