Earlier this week we had a look at seven things that won’t fuel your passion, which leaves this lurking question:  what will fuel your passion?

Here is one thing I’ve found that answers that question better than anything:

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)

Face it, there are far more than seven things that won’t fuel your passion. Life is full of events, people and situations that drain passion from us. Sometimes it happens instantly.  Sometimes it’s a slow drain over time. 

In fact, we probably can’t produce enough defence to ward off all the attacks on passion that will hit us over time.  As soon as we think we’ve got it figured out, something hits from an angle we hadn’t anticipated. 

That’s why a sustained offence might be all the defence we need. Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the well spring of life. 

Increasingly for me, remembering this is becoming a daily thing I pay attention to.  Staying passionate over the long haul is a life commitment for me.  I never want to retire (even if I one day retire).  I never want to hit ‘cruise control’ on my calling, spiritual walk, parenting, friendships or marriage.  I want to bring my best every day, add value to those around me, be a constant student of what I see, experience and hear, and for that, staying passionate is essential. 

That may not seem like an ‘answer’, but it’s a principle that I think can guide anyone through various seasons of heart stagnation.  When I find my passion waning, I increasingly see it as a heart matter, and I start a conversation with God, often with Toni, and often with close friends about it. 

The longer I’m alive, the more intentional I need to become about it.  If you don’t stay intentional about how you live, you’ll hit a default mode that is far below the potential God sees in you.

How about you?  What do you do to guard your heart?  What do you do to stay passionate season after season?

When my heart is alive and elastic, it’s because I’m paying attention to this principle.  When my heart is hardening or growing dead, it’s because I’m ignoring it. 
 

The longer you’re in leadership, the more aware you become of what really fuels passion over the long haul.  The question that drives me (a lot) these days is this:  How do you stay passionate over a long period of time?

Some things fuel passion in the short term, but they don’t last.  Two things often fuel passion in leaders in the short term:

1. First.  When you’re a young leader, doing something for the first time can feel like passion.  Your first team, first successes, first failures, first learnings, first accomplishments.
2. New.  Every time you start something new you get passionate.  That’s why some leaders love change.  Sometimes leaders love change too much.  Sometimes we change not because the organization needs change, but because we got bored.

That’s all good, but you get to a point after a few years where you realize life isn’t a series of firsts or a series of new.  What then?  Sometimes, leaders try to find substitutes for authentic passion.  Here are five more things that won’t fuel your passion long term: 

1. Caffeine.   If you haven’t got much deep down passion, caffeine is a cheap substitute. Whether it’s Red Bull, Starbucks or some monster energy, getting the juices flowing just feels so good.  It can make you feel excited even if you’re not. 
2. Overscheduling.   If a leader isn’t excited about anything big (no big challenge on the radar), one temptation is to fill life up with too many little things.  So we overbook, overwork and over commit hoping to rekindle some energy and momentum.
3. Hype.  Feeling a lack of passion deep down, we’ll try to convince ourselves and everyone else that what we’re doing is the BEST THING EVER, even when we’re not sure it is. 
4. Time off.  If you’re not engaged deep down, leaders will sometimes just wander away, spending less and less time engaging in what they’ve been called to do.
5. Find a New (Side) Passion.  If you’re not passionate about the main thing, you’ll find something else to be passionate about – whether that’s building the biggest deck in history in your backyard or starting a new ministry on the side.

All of it’s sad, because you’re not really doing the thing God called you to do. Because you don’t have the passion for it anymore.  And the things that you thought fueled passion weren’t really doing it.  

It also avoids the hard soul work that actually fuels long term passion.  Later this week, I’ll come back with some thoughts on how to stay passionate over the long haul doing the same thing you were called to do in the first place.

Until then – what are you learning about passion?  What sidelines your passion? What did you think might work that didn’t work?

Chances are you’ve had it happen before – you completely navigate a difficult situation and your friends ask "how do you stay so calm and composed when everyone’s losing it?"  You don’t really know the answer to that question, but you make something up and tell yourself you’re doing really well.

Then someone cuts into your lane on the drive home and you almost lose it. His action was a two out of ten, but your reaction was an eight.  Or someone sends you a slightly critical email and you brood around the house dumping on the people you love and then can’t sleep for two nights because you’re so angry/upset/emotional about it. His slight was a three out of ten.  You reacted with an eleven.  

Sometimes the things we think don’t bother us really bother us.  The emotions we never process don’t disappear, they just go underground and decide to bubble up in the most incovenient and inappropriate ways.  

A mentor told me a few years ago that he’s convinced that one of the silent killers in ministry for church leaders is what he calls "ungrieved losses".  I think he might be on to something.

The Jews have an elaborate mourning ritual when someone dies. Consider how Job’s friends responded to the tragedy that Job experienced.  When was the last time you said nothing for seven days, tore your clothes and sat in silence when something catastrophic happened?  Today, many of us process grief while talking on the phone with iTunes playing in the background while we’re trying to finish making breakfast so we can get the kids off to school.

My mentor friend’s theory is this: people in ministry suffer loss every day. Heck, life brings loss every day. Every time the grocery bill runs too high and the bank balance gets tight, it’s a loss.  Every time someone leaves your ministry, it’s a loss.  Every time someone steps back from your team, it’s a loss.  Every time you give something only to find ungratitude, it’s a loss.  Every time someone tells you’re great but you should really see the other guy who’s awesome, it’s a loss.  Then add in death, illness and strained or lost relationships and, well, you get the picture. 

And my friend’s theory is that so many people up and quit ministry or lose their effectiveness in life not because any one incident made them snap or quit – but rather because the loss that provoked their exit is tied to dozens or hundreds of ungrieved losses along the way.  They might not even understand why they’re stepping back, shutting down or resigning.  All they know is they just can’t take it anymore. 

One of the practices I’ve adopted over the last few years, as strange as it still seems to me, is to try to grieve my losses as they happen.  I try to take time daily and weekly to review what’s bothering me and simply pray about it. Sometimes I talk to others about it.  I try to let myself stop and feel what I’ve experienced.  And when I feel it, something surprising happens – the negative feeling pretty much disappears.  If I do it promptly when a loss occurs, I can even respond to a four out of ten email or remark with a two out of ten reply – not a twelve.  I can actually offer grace.

How about you?  Do you find life full of losses?  How do you grieve them?  What have you found helpful?

So I’m going to share a little piece of my world with you today.

One of the hardest battles I face internally is related to my heart.  Like you, I’m most effective when my heart is fully engaged.

But over time, it takes work to keep your heart fully engaged.  It usually unfolds this way – starting out, you give your heart (to someone, something, some worthy cause) and at some point, you get stung.  People you trusted let you down.  People say nasty things. Sure, it wasn’t all their fault.  But regardless, it didn’t turn out as you expected. 

You soldier on.  You give your heart again, only to discover that people and life truly is a mixture of hope and disappointment. And somewhere in the process our hearts get damaged. 

The last three years (leaving a denomination and starting a church) have been incredibly rewarding in ministry but have also included the most challenging passages I’ve had to navigate. 

I found myself in a dialogue with God this fall asking Him to give me 100 passion for ministry.  I had a commitment to ministry, even an excitement over it.  But I felt my passion wasn’t where I longed for it to be.  Not sure everyone around me saw it, but I promise you inside I felt it.  I was puzzled.

I prayed about it and talked to a few people about it and then one night, I believe God showed me so clearly what the issue was – it was my heart. Having been stung a few times, I think it had quietly shrunk back – not wanting to be hurt again. It may have been 90% there, but 10% was hiding out in the back, cautious, reserved.

Late one night as I was praying with my wife and some friends, it was as though I heard God nudge me to say "I’m in, if you’re in."   It was a weird message, for sure.   Why would God not be "in"?  Maybe it was the nudge I need to get going.  Maybe it’s a reflection of God’s character – He usually partners with people and prefers not to do things alone (see 2 Corinthians 5). 

But I realized if God was in it, I had nothing to fear.  That what I need to do most is fully throw myself into this – every last ounce.  Every bit of this constantly-beating heart.

After all, don’t you love seeing someone whose heart is in it?  Whether it’s a hockey player, a chef, or a kid in a Christmas play, the people who bring their whole hearts to whatever they do are not only more interesting to watch, they are better people to follow and do life with.  They are fully alive.

So, here’s my heart.  It’s fully engaged.  I’m putting it out there every day. I know I’ll need to do that again, but I’m doing it now.

How about you?  Does your heart get banged around?  Does it shrink back after attack?  What do you need to throw your heart into: your marriage, your family, your ministry, your job?  God is in it, what’s keeping you back?  What would help you fully engage your heart?

I know the world has bigger issues, but I had to ask.

We are almost at the end of a this decade and there’s no accepted name for it. It’s hard to believe we’ve gotten nine full years into it, billions of people have lived through it, and no one has named it anything remotely widespread.

We talk about the eighties, the nineties, the sixties, and I’m pretty sure we’ll call the decade ahead "the teens" or "the tens" or something.  I’m feel like we’re in that awkward space we were ten years ago when no one could simply say "2000" but felt like they had to say "the year 2000".  Remember that? We’re such a strange bunch.

But what do you call this decade?  Yep, you can read about the ‘oughts’ the ‘zeroes’ the ‘naughts’, but they sound so lame to me. Do they sound just weird to you too? The 2000s is my lead contender, but even it sounds weird.

Maybe we should call this decade ‘the decade of which we shall not speak" or "that ten year period between 2000 and 2010"?  Okay, maybe not.

What will you call it?  Any great ideas out there?

It’s pretty popular to be against something.  It’s harder to be for something. 

What about you?  Is your life FOR something, or has it become about being AGAINST something else?

• Do you love the church, or just criticize other churches and leaders? (Love Craig Groeschel on this)
• Do you love God, or just look down on others who don’t (or who you think love him less than you do)?
• Do you love your personal style? Or are you just trying to dress or live in a way that’s cooler than the guy down the street?
• Do you love it when new people come to faith, or resent that your story isn’t more exciting?
• Do you love your job, or just find things about it you don’t love?

Everybody’s a critic, but critics end up with nothing at the end of their days but a series of things they were against.  Not much to admire, actually or pass on to your kids.

What keeps us from being FOR something?  Maybe a fear that others will criticize us.  Maybe having lived in negative head space for so long that we forgot that God called us to build and grow people and his Kingdom.  What do you think?

What are you FOR? How can that become a passion for you?  How can what you are FOR begin to define you?

I want my life to be about what I am for, not what I’m against.  What about you?