What do I live passionately about, would do anything for, and over anything else am consumed by?
These are the questions camping out in my thoughts this week. The words I've been thinking about, intensely. And certainly, this is something I've reflected on a lot during my walk as a Christian -- but an important note is that these questions, Jesus lover or not, are ones that everyone should ask themselves. And not just ask once and answer plainly. But ask often enough and answer completely, because daily we can stray away and stop giving the answers that we truly want to live by--getting swept up into a life that is void of living passionately about what truly matters and void of those things we should be consumed by--all easily taken over by placeholders and things lacking depth and meaning.
These are life giving questions. These are self defining questions. These are soul searching, breathe taking, stop you in your tracks questions when you ask them honestly and are vulnerable to answer.
When asking myself a few days ago, my response was full of answers that look pretty on paper, a list of things that I am truly passionate about and living my life for. All wonderful things, and true. But then I realized in the days following that my rolling out of bed thoughts, my walking around the city thoughts, and my at home after work thoughts were all consumed by an agenda that I made for myself: preplanned writing topics, self focused ideas, an inability to be in the moment, exercise, with no room to stray away. Not to say I cannot ever think about my to-do list, what I want to write about, or thoughts of self-awareness -- but to have these be the things that I am consumed by and think about first thing over everything else? That type of realization is gut wrenching when you have it - -and that realization, I had (and am still).
I have this image in my mind of someone coming up to me, hugging so tightly, with me wrapped up in their arms, that the things I am consumed by squeeze out. Right onto them. What is it that squeezes out? I know in a literal sense, this would never happen. Things don't just squeeze out of us onto others. But what we live passionately about, would do anything for, and over anything else are consumed by -- this completely one hundred percent drives our actions and our thoughts. This is what directs our day and our "in the moments". This is what squeezes out. And the person who says otherwise, I still have yet to meet.
So when you ask yourself What am I consumed by? What do I live passionately about? What would I do anything for? Are you stopped in your tracks because you are blown away by the affects of intentional living? Or are you stopped in your tracks because you're realizing that your answers are not the ones you want to hear?
I challenge you, in the process of loving yourself, to reflect on what it is that consumes your thoughts. What is it that you are (or are not) living passionately for? What do you want your answers to be -- and if they are not how you want your life, your day to day, and your outpouring to look like -- why not change that, right now?
photo via Pinterest
