Wasted Passions

Wasted Passion

Sunday, January 06, 2008 - AM

Pastor Jim May

What are you passionate about this morning? Every one of us is passionate about something. Passion can be defined in a number of ways but what it all comes down to is this:

What is it that compels you to get up and get moving?

What do you desire most of all in your life?

What is it that consumes your time, demands your love and grabs your attention?

What is the driving force in your heart and life that gives your life meaning?

What do you want that is so important to you that you are willing to spend each breath and trade your life to obtain it?

If you can tell me the answers to these questions, then you will know what your real passions are.

I am speaking to people right now who are passionate. But the thing that strikes me is that sometimes people are passionate about something that won’t be worth the price they are paying in the end.

Right now we are in the playoff season for football in America. Tomorrow night there is going to be a final game for the national championship title down in New Orleans at the Superdome. People have spent millions upon millions of dollars just to satisfy their passion for football. There may not be food on the table for the next month; the car note or house note may fall behind – but they are going to be in the stands come game time.

Why are they willing to put everything on hold to be at that ball game? It’s because football or sports in general, is their passion. It’s the love of their life and it’s what seems to give their lives meaning. We don’t call them passionate though. We call them “fans”, short for “fanatics”. You have to be passionate to pay the prices that are being asked for tickets, and yet the game will be a sell out. Tickets are going anywhere from $686 each for the nose-bleed seats, where you need a pair of binoculars to see the players on the field, to $4243 for seats on the sideline. Personally, I could think of a lot of things I’d rather do with that much money, but then sports has never been one of my passions.

There are a lot of things that you can be passionate about. Perhaps you are passionate about cars, fascinated by their inner workings, and you can’t seem to get enough of Hot Rods, fast cars and drag strips. You may not be willing to spend your money going to a football game, but you’d give anything to be in Indianapolis, Daytona or Talladega to hear them say, “Gentlemen, start your engines” and hear the roar as the cars scream past the stands on the fastest racetracks in the world.

Maybe your passion is reading books. You can’t wait for the next trip to Barnes and Noble, and whatever the newest and hottest book is, you’re going to be first in line to get it. Stephen King, Tommy Tenny, John Grisham and Agatha Christie are among your greatest heroes.

Maybe your passion is the latest and greatest video computer game such as Xbox 360, Playstation 3 or the Nintendo Wii. Your central focus in life is to have the fastest and the best, with the most popular games on the market. Your life is consumed in front of a screen, living in an imaginary world, living out fantasies created in the minds of software engineers and computer programmers. Wii fanatics have been known to stand in line for over 36 hours to get their dream fulfilled.

Maybe your passion is Television or the Movies. I know one man whose entire life is consumed with movies. You can’t name a movie he doesn’t have, from the silent films to the latest one out. He has more money tied up in movies than any of us here have tied up in our home. Movies are his passion. Is it yours too? Can you tell me when “Spiderwick Chronicles” or “Jumper” are going to be released into the theaters? If not, then movies aren’t your passion.

What about the TV; is that your passion?

What happening to Michael on Prison Break? He’s going to get a taste of solitary confinement in a Panamanian jail.

What about Alex on Grey’s Anatomy? What’s he up to. Well get ready for him to heal a faith healer.

And what about one of the dumbest shows on the TV called “The Office”. Michael is going to be deposed as a witness when his former girlfriend Jan sues the company. Now there’s an episode you don’t want to miss!

And finally, don’t miss CSI-NY this week or you’ll never know why a woman was crushed while wearing red shoes, and why the CSI team from New York will actually be in Kansas. Now, if you didn’t know all this was coming up, then you aren’t really passionate about TV!