passion.... meh...

Tonight at Salt Stan preached on Romans 12:9-13. Four verses, eight sentences, twelve commands. It was a thick sermon of lots of application. He said it was bascially eight sermons, on those eight different sentences, and hopefully one of them would hit you.

The one that hit me was "Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord." Stan went on to talk about zeal and its opposite, duty. Just watch the new wide eyed freshmen on a sports team, running full out sprints during warm ups, while the seasoned seniors are lollygagging out of duty. A good picture to test yourself with: were would you be on that sports team?

It hit me pretty square. I've looked at this list of commands before, and the one that hits me usually as my strike zone is this very one. Never be lacking in zeal. The Lord has blessed me so that my life has the grace on it to exhibit some zeal at times. But lately? Not really. I've just been floating between a part time job and the lack of a second part time job. Filling the hours with random crap. Which I suppose is the biggest challenge if you're a zealous person. How do you keep the fire burning?

Passion is already lacking in our day. Cool indifference was the mode of the day in my civil engineering classes. Nobody really talked or was allowed to enjoy anything. Everybody rolled their eyes at the kids who sat in the front asked lots of questions and tucked their shirts in. Shuffle in. Take care of your business. Shuffle out. And I guess at the bar Friday night you could cut loose. I guess.

I don't want to conform to the pattern of this world. God, you've been transforming my heart, but we ain't there yet. Give me a persevering zeal for your Name and for your Glory and for the things that awaken my heart here on earth to serve you. I want to burn, Jesus. Set me ablaze. All it takes is a little spark. I certainly feel like dry tinder here at the moment. But Lord I need some thicker wood on the fire, too.

While I was at home during the Chirstmas holiday, we raked a lot of leaves. I know, it's almost inhumane to rake that many leaves during the Chirstmas holiday. By the end of the day we had this big pile of leaves and we threw in some dry reeds too. They grow near the burn pile and are useful for starting the fire. So we started the dry reeds and the leaves. The flame would quickly jump high and hot. Then it would just as soon die out to nothing but some smoking leaves. This scenario repeated about 10 times before we were fed up with it. The leaves and dry reeds were good for flaring up and getting a flame started. But to actually burn the pile, we had to catch fire on wooden sticks, in a thicker and thicker progression of wood. Once we had some logs going, it was easy to manage the thick steady log at the base of the leave pile, steadily chewing on the leaves that fell into the flame.

Lord, in the same way, may you temper me in that I catch flame in the substantial parts. The persevering parts of me that don't just get excited and flare up, but the parts that can steadily burn. Lord, may I never be lacking in zeal. Stir up the flame of passion. I want to keep my spiritual fervor. Help me do this, Lord, that I may serve You!