What if I’m Wrong?: Navigating the Waves of Fear and Failure预览

Passion should come with caution signals. It’s a strong wave over all who dare to greet it. The same water that can raise you up, can sweep you beneath its current.

I know what it feels like to have your dreams bury you beneath them. I had forgotten the rules of adulthood and jumped headfirst into the waves of passion, thinking it would bring me safely to my purpose. But passion does nothing safely. It’s a harrowing front stroke into deep water with a strong current. It offers only risk, pain, and reward. Stay on the shore if you want safety. This is a common misconception: that our passions can be pursued from a safe distance. That we can give in to hope without eventually losing it.

Biblically speaking, the word passion literally means “to suffer.” It is about doing what we feel called to do, even though it hurts. That is why they called it “the passion of Christ” (see Isaiah 53:4). I don’t know if it is even considered passion until the suffering starts.

Likewise, the hand of God being over your life is not always visible by financial measure or popularity. In fact, I would go as far as to say that there is no correlation to financial prosperity and spiritual anointing. Consumerism is not the marker of God’s presence. The prophets of Israel lived lives that can attest to this. I used to think there was a correlation between the size of the crowd and the size of the gifting. I know now that this is not true. There are successful people in every industry who have done so by their own strength, not God’s. And there are people I have known personally without crowds or financial resources, but the spirit of God is heavily upon them.

It is difficult to understand the ways of heaven while still on earth. It’s hard to fathom the ways of a God who causes the sun to shine on both the righteous and the wicked. It doesn’t seem fair to me. And God doesn’t seem to mind. I have had to stop trying to understand it. But I have learned to trust God anyway.

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, I am thankful that when the pursuit of passion is painful, you are with me in the pain, in the suffering, filling me with your strength, peace, and joy. Amen.