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| Jesus' Passion for His Father's house |
Two polar attitudes have shown up in the Church; neither
one adorns the Gospel.
Anti-intellectualism and anti-emotionalism fail to do justice to
Biblical teaching concerning the appropriate balance between the mind and the
heart. Both tend to leave the seeker believing that the Christian life is
wooden or mushy. Neither satisfies our basic instincts about life as it was
designed to be lived.
Recent participation in a Michael Card “Biblical Imagination” workshop enriched
my understanding of Informed Imagination. Creativity that is distinctly
Christian flows from an imagination that is honed on the whetstone of
Scripture. Redeemed imagination demonstrates that all of our faculties can
express the beauty of Truth as revealed in Scripture. This approach recognizes
that our brokenness by the Fall yields
vain imaginations, many which are grotesque or which express futility or
despair.
For the past several years the notion of Informed Passion
has been center-stage in my reflections. The aegis of this preoccupation with
passion was reading John Piper’s Desiring
God, Meditations of a Christian
Hedonist. Fundamentally our desires are part of our hard-wiring by
Design. In the fallen world exploitation
of passions moves merchandise, incites addictive lusts, craves anything that
numbs pain. The operative question is “what does it mean to have emotional
integrity?”
Acknowledging the presence of passion is rudimentary to
emotional integrity. Psychologist may propose that passion is a function of a
brain structure; i.e. the amygdala. Evolutionists posit that it is inherent in
the survival mechanism, “fight or flight.” Sadly this perspective leads to a
kind of determinism or raw materialistic view of life.
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"You have made us for
yourself, O Lord,
and our heart is restless until it rests in you."
Augustine of Hippo
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Alternatively I believe that passion is on board as a
consequence of the Imago Dei (Image of God). Within the Triune Godhead there must be a
passionate relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This passion
is a component of the self-existence of the Trinity. Thus the Creator has
crafted the creature in this passionate likeness. Thus passion shows up in
every human interaction in marriage, parenting, leadership, business, etc.
Without passion relationships grow cold, lifeless if you
will. In the leadership domain, leaders
without passion fail to hold their followers commitment to their cause. Overplayed, passion can also ruin a
relationship, burning it out for lack of pacing another’s emotional investment.
Hence my tentative conclusion that passion is like a nuclear reactor. The intense potential of the atomic reactions
are regulated by the control rods.
In the Christians life, we gratefully acknowledge the
gift of passion, wisely allow it to energize our faith and love of God and our
neighbor, and even release it in worship under the influence of the Holy Spirit
by the Word of God. My prayer is that the Lord would make me desperate for
Himself.
See you at the Potter’s wheel!
“His disciples remembered that it was
written, “Zeal for your house
will consume me.”
John 2:17
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