Following Judah's Lion

Passing Passion

There are those tortured souls who cut themselves and in that find some temporary solace. There are those who find an attraction they never wanted or sought, but are in bondage to the perversion that captures them wholly. There are those children who dread bedtime, and instead of serenity and safety, they listen for the footsteps that will add to the nightmare others call a childhood. There are those who suffer such daily pain that they long for death but find none. There are those whose depression so strangles them that they are drawn to escape through death’s door. There are those who feel so unloved, so unwanted, that they withdraw into a lonely dungeon deep within their own minds. There are those who receive a death sentence at age four because of their mother’s careless behavior. There are those who will be murdered as a child, carefully disposed of, and no one will ever miss them.

There are a million others that suffer unimaginably here on this cursed earth, those who endure the evil that escaped through Adam and thrives throughout the human race. And with that knowledge, where is our passion? We have these antiseptic discussions about should a Christian curse, while millions writhe under the weight of the curse itself. We have become a people of the round table, certainly not the prayer closet that begs with tears for the power to rescue the perishing. With the one life we have to passionately reflect the Master, we live in bondage to the hedonistic and mundane dictates of our own livelihoods. There are those who even Christ’s followers shed no tears for, and the compassion that was His has left with Him.

Have we not tired of the endless theological merry-go-rounds that accomplish nothing but titillate our fallen pride, and should we not break up the fallow ground that has grown cold and fruitless. Where is the power that broke prison doors and blinded the eyes of God’s enemies? Where are the tears that once fell for Jerusalem, when will we feel the warm, salty tears for the whole world? And after the initial changes that come with conversion, where is the sacrificial pursuit that thirsts for Christ like a deer thirsts for water. Is that just a nice song that shames us?

There are those who give their very lives for the glory of serving Christ. There are those who refuse the dainties of this attractive world, but are filled with the very Words that come from His very mouth. There are those who are consumed with Him, speaking of Him to them who will and will not listen alike. There are those who spend endless hours before His throne, inclining their ears to hear what He would say. There are those who are never content with the present condition of their intimacy with Him, but press on and on to be in His presence that will change them into His image. There are those who have died for His name, with His praise on their transporting lips.

The time for this passion is passing before us, ever so slowly, yet ever so quickly.

A farmer went into his fields to take inventory of his crops. He noticed that his crops were almost at harvest, but they did not seem to be what the seed had promised. So he thought if he plowed the field under and started again it would be costly and inconvenient. But if he did start anew it just might yield much more than what he would harvest from this crop. In the end he settled for what he had.

The time for this passion is passing before us, ever so slowly, yet ever so quickly.