As I mentioned before, one of the things at Epic last year that impacted me was being around the Christian people that I was around for those 3 days. One of the coaches talked about having a passion for Christ and not being afraid to be different. He mentioned Revelation 3:16. In that verse and the verses before and after, Jesus talks about being a lukewarm Christian and how dangerous it is to be neither hot nor cold. That really stuck with me. It really made me self-reflect on whether I was being a true disciple for Christ or just when it was convenient.
We all have passions. We all have things that interest us. We all have things that we pour our time into. For most of my life one of mine has been baseball. When I was finished playing, it then became my career. I have poured a lot of time into baseball over the years. I was passionate about baseball when I played. If you aren’t passionate about a sport when you play, then why play? If you are not going to buy in and do it all the way, then you are really wasting time. I don’t mean that you have to eat, sleep, and breathe that sport. You can have a true passion for it and still have a life. I tell my players that all the time. I tell them I want them to love the game and love playing baseball with their friends. It’s some of the best times of their life. They may not realize it at the time, but they will at some point if they don’t in the present time. But, If they are going to be a part of it, they might as well do it with all they have. I still want them to be a kid. I still want them to have fun with their buddies. But if we are going to play baseball, then lets have some fun along the way and work hard and win as much as we possibly can.
That is the passion I want them to have as they play. It’s the same I had when I played. As I transformed from a player to a coach, that didn’t change. But, I know that it is not always going to work out that way every single day. Not for me a coach, or for them as a player. Just like a player, there have been times during my career that I have had to re-evaluate my passion. There are times when it has been really strong, and there are other times when it has not been so strong. There’s times when I have gotten tired. There are times when I’ve thought about giving in. There was a time I discussed in my earlier post when I was burned out and needed to take some time to re-assess what I did and how and why I did it. It happens. One thing I found during that time is that if your passion is filled with selfish desires, it cannot be near as effective as it can be if others are put first. Sometimes we all need that break. In any career things can get monotonous. Things can happen that cause us to question why we do things. Other people can get us down and frustrate us and make us question why we do what we do. A wise man once told me that there are two kinds of people in this world, drains and fountains. You can just imagine how that analogy applies to life. I had never thought of it that way, but it made total sense when he said it. The drain sucks the life out of everyone and everything around them. They are negative people that complain about everything and cause others to do the same. The fountain brings life and positive vibes to those around them. They lift others up. We have all, at some point in our life, been a fountain and also a drain. Hopefully more times than not we are a fountain! We all know people that are fountains in our lives, but unfortunately we all know some lifelong drains as well.
There are times in our careers when we have been on top of the mountain. There are times when we have it all figured out and things are going well. We feel like we can conquer the world. These are the times when we are fountains. These are the times when we make those around us better. These are the times when our confidence is highest. These are the best times. These are the times when we are excited to go to work every day. It’s funny how this works. We never really know when the highs and lows will come, but we know they will. We know that our true character will be tested.
The Christian life is no different. There are highs and lows as a Christian. This is the most important passion we can have and there are times when it is stronger than other times. There are times when the drains seem to suck the life out of us. They get us down. They make us question a lot of things. They have a negative effect on our attitude. They cause us to question what we do and why we do it. They cause us to question if it is worth it. They cause us to possibly become drains ourselves. But, it’s not always someone else. Sometimes it is us. Sometimes we do it to ourselves. Sometimes we just lose our passion. Sometimes we just don’t make the Christian life a priority. We don’t place the emphasis on it that we should. We don’t want to put forth the effort to be different from the world. Sometimes it’s a combination of things. But, no matter the cause, sometimes it happens.
But in the same way that drains bring us down, sometimes the fountains pick us up. We all know those fountains that as a Christian we look up to. They are those people that have that peace and burning desire to be like Christ about them that makes us want to be better at life in general. Those fountains are just as contagious as the drains. They motivate us to be better. They help revive our desire to be like God. They in turn help us to help others. We can have that same impact on others that they have on us. No matter who you are, someone somewhere looks up to you as a Christian. You have a chance to be someone’s fountain!
I have talked about my spiritual journey during my earlier post. I talked about how I went through years of being lukewarm. Satan had tricked me into thinking everything was just peachy. My passion has been restored over the last several years and gotten stronger as time has gone on. But that day at Epic I was challenged. That was one of those ah-hah moments for me. With all the experiences I have talked about, each one brought me a little closer to God. This one was no different and completely unexpected. I had read the verse he talked about before, but apparently wasn’t in tune enough in my Christianity then for it to work on me. I wasn’t ready for what that verse meant to me before. What’s crazy was he wasn’t even really talking to us. He was talking to the campers. They were the ones that were supposed to be inspired. But what he said hit me right in the face. That was all I could think about. I thought about all the times in past when I didn’t do what I knew I should because I thought I was good enough. I truly felt like at that time in those moments I had everything under control. I thought for years that I had this life figured out. Satan is powerful. But so is our God. I’ve said several times that I have no doubt that God puts certain people in our lives at certain times for certain reasons. This is just another example. Coach Boone has a passion for Christ and a burning desire to make others around him better. I cant’t speak for anyone else there, but in that moment that day he was the definition of a fountain for me!!!
We wake up every day with a choice. We have a chance to be a drain or a fountain. When Jesus speaks about being neither hot nor cold in Revelation 3, that made me realize that I never want to be that way again. It is dangerous when we get complacent. That is when we get to fooling ourselves into thinking we have it all figured out. That’s when our passion suffers and we don’t work to get better. That is satan at work. We don’t always identify that as satan. But that is exactly what that is. He is telling us we are good enough. He is telling us we don’t have to work so hard to be like Christ and that it will be ok. He tries to convince us we are good enough. I can’t tell you how many times I have thought about that lesson Coach Boone gave to those boys that day at camp. I hope it impacted them the same way it did me. We have to be dedicated to being set apart. We have to be willing to be different. We can’t worry about being like everyone else. We can’t worry about what others think about us. People may say things about us, or treat us different because they see our desire to follow Christ. But that’s ok. We can’t let that get us down. They may not understand it now, but just maybe we planted a seed that will one day grow. We never know when we are doing that for other people.
So what’s your main passion? It’s kind of like what I talked about last week with our identity. Our identity will be in what we are passionate about. If our main passion is in our job, so will our identity. If our main passion is in something else, so will our identity. If our main passion is in Christ, so will our identity. It’s not hard to tell. Other people see it daily. Us seeing it for ourselves is just us being bold enough to self-reflect. It’s us being able to evaluate ourselves in an honest way. That’s not always easy to do. Sometimes we want to make self-reflection end up a certain way, but then it’s not completely accurate. I hope that we don’t let satan win. I hope that we don’t give him the satisfaction of accomplishing his mission within us. Any time that we aren’t furthering our relationship with Christ and we feel like we are good enough, satan is winning. It’s a daily battle and we have to wake up everyday determined to win. Battling satan is like battling an opponent in sports. We can’t approach satan with the mentality not to lose. We have to approach the daily battle with him determined to win. We cannot defeat satan ourselves. That victory is only possible with God! We have to be willing to be different. Sometimes that means stepping out of our comfort zone. We all probably have multiple passions. My prayer for all of us is that our strongest passion is a selfless passion for Christ that has a positive impact on people daily. May we be a fountain that lifts others up and our Christ like spirit be contagious. If we all strive to have Christ as our top passion and priority in our life, the world can’t help but become a better place!!!