A Life Passion?

What's your life passion? Is there one all-consuming mission that everything you do in life falls under? Should you have one? If so, what should it be? Do you live everyday--every hour--in accordance with this objective?

Such a concept had really never crossed my mind until my roommate the last two years of school showed me the importance of developing this mission and sticking with it (brother, thank you!). He showed me that God calls us to number our days and live in such a manner that we don’t just idly coast through life. Instead, we must consciously decide what we will live for and evaluate on a regular basis if we are truly living in light of this objective. Do I always live and make decisions that are in accordance with my objective of knowing, loving, and glorifying God and in dependence upon Him, developing multiplying disciples to reach the nations? No. But oh how great it is to know for what I'm living each day and for Whom. Now that I'm out of school, I really see how vital this objective is. There is so much stuff out there competing for my time, money, energy, and love. It is really easy to give up on trying to live the radical, God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated life and instead live the Christian, American dream (not that I think the American dream in and of itself is bad). Each day I find myself having to fight (often times losing) to live my objective. Should I--should we--fight for this?

John Piper presents an argument in his book Don't Waste Your Life (see the right sidebar) that God does want us to live our lives with an objective. All of our boasting should be in the cross of Jesus Christ: "Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal 6:14). Okay, we've got the boasting part taken care of (a vital part of our lives). So no more boasting in work or school or football or intelligence or traditions or politics (an especially tough one for me)—only in the Cross. The pursuit of wealth, status, fast cars, comfortable neighborhoods, or political victories (gosh, I keep getting hit) don't matter. One thing does: "Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:7-8). And now we've taken care of what matters in life: knowing Christ.

If knowing Christ and boasting only in the cross is what matters, shouldn’t we be sure to live in such a way that this is truly fleshed out in our lives? If we are serious about this, our goal ought to be only to live this way. If that is what truly matters and we don’t live that way, then we’ve wasted our life. We'll be like the 59 and 51 year old couple that Piper introduces to us. They took early retirement, and live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells...."Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: 'Look, Lord. See my shells.'"

As Piper succinctly states, "God created us to live with a single passion: to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of HIM in every part of our lives."

Oh God! Help me to not waste my life!

"Desire that your life count for something great! Long for your life to have eternal significance. Want this! Don't coast through life without a passion" (Piper, p 46).