An Awakening of Passion

A Familiar Visitor
As I drove up to my place last Wednesday night, I noticed on the second floor the back of a man illuminated by the front porch light. When he turned around, my eyes could not see the clarity of his face, but even under the shroud of the night my heart recognized the figure of this visitor.  One does not forget love’s footsteps in the heart, even if it has been a long time.  The man walked down the stairs after he had talked with my next door neighbor.

I removed the key from the ignition.  I took a deep breath, exhaled the momentary anxiety induced from the unexpected, and stepped out.

 “Hello,” I said in Korean, as I dipped my head into the summer night air.

We talked for about ten minutes—it was my first real conversation in years with my dad, beyond a few, detached sentences.  What did we talk about?  We conversed upon political philosophy and the motive behind the pursuit of life.  Despite the awkwardness, the impulse to talk and reconnect filled the silence with any topic that came to mind.  I discovered that we were quite different, like the sternness of the Atlantic meeting the avant-garde Pacific, me an “illimitable ocean” of chaos where “time, and place, are lost” (Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II).  I’m not that complex, am I?

But I respect my dad.  One characteristic of my dad that God opened my eyes to was a consistent strength.  My dad’s speech and actions are tenacious, unending of strength, able to embrace change with fortitude.  He charges ahead like a rhino without regard for roadblocks. 

When my family owned a convenience store almost a decade ago, my parents met many robbers who introduced themselves with a gun.  One time, when a robber had fled the store, my dad chased after him firing a few shots into the air.  The robber panicked, because his toy gun could do nothing for him, and threw the money up as he fled.  But my dad caught him.  As a reward for his courage, my dad received an award and an article in paper.

The wisest display of courage?  Not really, but then again when a couple of teenagers broke into my car some time ago in the middle of the night, I ran outside and tried to chase them down.  But they got away.  Deep inside every man exists a spirit to fight for what is right.

The issue here isn’t whether the courage was stupid or not, but rather at this moment in life whether I have any courage at all.  I want to be a rhino, but I’m more like a cute and snuggly teddy bear that stays safe in bed, living a life of quiet desperation.

A Courage Forgotten
I sold my television when I started seminary.   Why?  I wanted to be a man of purpose.  No distraction would stand in my path to a full-hearted pursuit of God.   One does not have to sell a television to pursue God, nor are you more spiritual for doing so, but this was my choice to remove that distraction.  My heart jumped at any opportunity that God put me in through the years—praise team, in-reach committee, evangelism committee, teaching, Awana, youth, college and singles, drama team, seminary, and missions.  My determination knew one goal, and that ambition mirrored the words of the song “One Pure and Holy Passion”.  I had grown sick of telling God I was giving him everything when I knew that I held back so many times.

Give me one pure and holy passion
Give me one magnificent obsession
Give me one glorious ambition for my life
To know and follow hard after You
- Passion’s “One Pure and Holy Passion”

But sometime in the past year, I ran out of breath and heart.  Critters of doubt entered my mind, and crawled through the small crevices that an onslaught of trials had cracked in my foundation.  These unwelcomed strangers built their nest, grew their population, and consumed my faith.  Why did I run for God again?  I simply forgot.  Distractions captured my attention.  I had no more courage to run anymore.  I wanted to give up and go far away, live in a small village, and plant potatoes and broccoli.

The Awakening
The novel Awakening by Kate Chopin had quite a tragic ending, but it reveals the struggles of Edna Pontellier in her pursuit of self-understanding and freedom.  She doesn’t pursue the wisest course of action, but her desire to live is unmistakable, almost even wild.  Do you want to truly live?  Then you have to stand up to that beast of adversity wanting to take a swipe at you with its fierce claws.  But it’s not a walk in the park.  It’s almost impossible to face adversity.  The beginning of any awakenings, which the words of Chopin capture, is such that many people perish a few steps out onto the narrow path and never get back up.

“In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her. …But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!”
Kate Chopin, Awakening, Chapter 6

Then how can we stop from perishing into the abyss, the chaotic, the mundane?  My hands clap for Edna’s bold step out of society’s norms and expectations, but without wisdom, passion becomes a fire that destroys hearts and leaves a trail of broken lives.  We must persevere in wisdom.  And wisdom dictates that we must run together, not as individuals.  To even go beyond the first tangle with the dangerous forces of this world­, we must run in love as one body, not leaving anyone behind to be picked off by prowling lions (Eph. 6:18).  Wise passion is passionate love for God and others.

When I do something, I do it wholeheartedly and not look back.  The only time I give up is when I have exhausted myself or run into a concrete wall—then I fall back and cry.  I’d rather exhaust myself pursuing Passion than trying to live with lying to my heart.  God wants me to do more than pick up seashells at the beach (Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life).  We have to wake up, O sleeping church, even to suffer, fighting for the ones we care about—our family, our friends, even future sheep who are mean now—to deliver them from the snares and claws of the evil one.  Wake up, sleeping sheep!  Bleating and eating grass for too long makes one forget about passion.

 “Yes,” she said. “The years that are gone seem like dreams – if one might go on sleeping and dreaming – but to wake up and find – oh! well! perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one’s life.”
Kate Chopin, Awakening, Chapter 38

One foot in the world.  One foot trying to pursue Christ.  A true Christian cannot run that way.  Imagine trying to run with a stiletto heel and a running shoe.  I don’t know–perhaps some of you are highly talented.  But most of us need two good-news shoes to run well.  It’s time to take a leap of faith.

Unlike Edna’s suicidal drowning episode in the alluring sea, dive into the flood that gives life.  In the words of Steven Curtis Chapman’s “Dive”,

“There is a supernatural power in this mighty river's flow
It can bring the dead to life, and it can fill an empty soul
And give a heart the only thing worth living and worth dying for, yeah
But we will never know the awesome power of the grace of God
Until we let ourselves get swept away into this holy flood…

The river's deep
The river's wild
The river's water is alive
So sink or swim
I'm diving in”

Dive in.

Breathe. Rediscover. Bliss.

rain free-fall streams canopy sky

pitter-patter stubborn taffeta umbrellas,

grace fails for the fearful who keep dry,

standing, sensation of car-splattered puddles,

nervous, stumble, naked feet

writhe in the patch thorns of love,

drinking vodka of world all down the road

stumble, stumble, bus hits wandering hearts,

how long? how long? bless the broken,

resigned tension, kneel, wet in divine tears.

The courage to step out into the rain--to be drenched in the downpour of grace.  But we fear what mighty things the Almighty can do with a daring heart.  I write with blue on gas receipts, inspired by gleanings from the creative flow of the divine.  Random reflections, seemingly so, but not really.  The esoteric imagination of the Creator shows itself all around to a seeking heart.  We must entreat to experience what our stubborn, umbrella hearts had once refused to see.  Rain, rain, rain, all around us, grace reaches us somehow.  Walk on the watery shards of life, our feet may bleed, but we won't care, all soaked in grace-filled tears--

Forgiven. Redeemed. Grace never fails for failures who believe.

Romans 8:37

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

How to start a revival (summary)

- from Gypsy Smith, British evangelist

1. Go home and get a piece of chalk.

2. Go into your closet and draw a circle on the floor.

3. Kneel in the middle of the circle.

4. Pray, "God, start a revival inside this circle."

5. When God has answered your prayer, the revival has begun.