Where is the passion?

India. 2005. I remember arriving and thinking, “this is it…this is my dream!” Not the exact city we arrived in, necessarily, but being back in India. I was enthralled with the idea of being able to live there for 2 years, accomplishing something and have an impact. I was amazed to be able to live out my dream so early in life! I couldn’t believe I was back in that crazy country, about to embark on an amazing journey.

Will I feel that way when I got back 2 days from now? Yeah, I’m going back to that crazy country to investigate a project that my company wants me to consider joining. I can see it now…arriving in the capitol…getting a taxi, going to the transit flat, fighting jet lag, going back to the airport the following day, taking a domestic flight to a new place, waiting, traveling by car four hours to another new place…stumbling to remember Hindi, sweating in the heat, just savoring the moment…? Will I? Will I savor the moment? Will I say, “yes, this is my dream?” Will I have that same reaction – somehow I don’t think I will…

Somehow this time, I don’t see myself loving the ground I will step on when I get off the plane. Somehow I imagine myself standing there, for about 10 minutes just taking it all in, not even making eye contact with the taxi drivers, letting them argue and offer, but not even engaging with them- acting as if I’m deaf, and as if there is no one around. I imagine myself walking slowly out of the airport, letting it sink in that I’m back in a place I thought I might not get back to so quickly. I imagine riding in the taxi, looking out at the window at the roadside sites- in many ways, seeing that not one single thing has changed. The masses of people, the traffic, the cows, the flowing saris, the men sleeping under trees, the kids scrapping their tin plates for their last bite of rice for the day, the continual noise and the chaos. Even after being there 2 years, after being back in America now for almost a year, it seems odd to think such a place as Delhi could even exist.

And how will I communicate? How did I ever communicate? I feel awkward trying to speak now, I have more inhibition for some reason, I feel less sure of myself.

I wonder if I will ever have a similar passion as I had July 2005 arriving in India, about to start the best two years of my life, and also the hardest.

I had a passion, a strong passion, a desire, a call, a conviction, a movement inside of me that could hardly be contained. It caused me to be and to go and to do more than I ever thought I could.

Where is that? Can I get it back? Does it just come at certain times of your life? What do you do in the meantime? How much do you continue, go one, move around until you find it again – that thing that drives you?

Yes, the Lord is my motor…but it seems like all the ways I can think of to serve Him seem far less exciting than that journey into India in 2005. I can’t even imagine feeling that way about something else…ever.

Why am I holding back? Why don’t I want to dive into this again? Is it because the reality has sunk in so deep? Is it because I have given much in the past and have been let down, and am afraid to give again? Is that rooted in the fact that I have sought approval from others as opposed to the Lord, the only place where true contentment lies?

And yet, I can’t live that way, I’m a 100% person. I want to commit to devote to something, I want to give my all, do my best.

Lord, give me that passion again…whatever it is for, give me a passion first and foremost for you – but please guide that passion into something tangible, someone to be, somewhere to go go, something to do for your glory. Allow me to express that passion in a life that honors you – give me a motivation beyond anything else to life for you…and show me how you want me to do that.