Where has all the passion gone?

"When the people say the mutes speaking, the maimed healthy, the paraplegics walking around, the blind looking around, they were all astonished and let everyone know that God was blazingly alive among them." (Matthew 15:31, The Message)

This verse caught me this morning. It hit me right between the eyes. Do you see in it what I see?

They knew that God was blazingly alive among them.

They knew. It doesn't say believe. We already do that. We mostly believe that God is among us and that God is alive. We rarely doubt that. In fact, it's almost so much a given that we don't think much about it usually. But they knew and were letting others know something exciting was happening. It was unusual. It was otherworldly. It had to be God. They defined it right. They just knew and they told others!

Blazingly alive. Although we believe that God is alive, we don't always recognize that life crossing paths with ours. There are several levels of living that we have experienced.

• There is sustained life (i.e. life support) that really isn't living or breathing. It is life but just barely.
  
• There is normal life which many might even consider dull. It is going through the motions of life and not hating it nor loving it. It is just what it is.
  
• There is exciting life where those living in it are discovering new things, adventures, the sweetness that life has to offer.
  
• There is also the blessed life, recognizing not only the presence of God but the work of God in and among life. (This doesn't mean prosperous, worry-free, trouble-free life, but of life where God is visibly working.)

There are surely others we can name but I like the term blazingly alive. It says something of the dynamic action of God, visible not to an individual, but to the community. It's more just a few recognizing what's happening, but the whole community who is witnessing the power and presence of God.

Put it all together and you see a deep passion for God and an excitment over what's happening in the community. So my question, Where has all the passion gone?

The answer unfortunately is simple. We are not witnessing the blazing life of God!

That doesn't mean that God isn't working or isn't doing amazing things among us because God is. But sometimes I'm not sure we are taking full advantage of sharing these things. We are not sharing what God is doing for us. We are not looking for them either.

I have to admit that I am guilty, guilty of not paying attention, guilty of not sharing when they are revealed, guilty of not asking for them. And then we're not guilty of making a celebration of these movements of God among us.

We hear them all the time, but we aren't celebrating God's work. We've lost our passion when God acts, as if it has become common place or that we attribute it to something else, an act of fate or consequence. But the truth is, God is at work and we need to get excited about it!

Healings are taking place, the maimed are becoming healthy, prayers are being answered, the blind are looking around. God is blazingly alive among us!

Let's celebrate it and tell someone!

Peace ><>
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