kennethbaucum

Could you take your passion in life, right now, and do it for the rest of your life, regardless of whether it ever earned a single cent?  Would you continue to share your knowledge with the world for free?  Is it worth sacrificing for?

The answers to these questions will help you identify your passion and determine just how passionate you truly are.  Words are great, but what about action?

I've been thinking for the past two years about work and passion -- including the relationship between the two. I'm looking at the idea of a zero-hour workweek, and the existence of true passion.  A place where you are so passionate about what you do -- your skills, talents and abilities that you share and contribute to the world -- that you could care less if you ever earned another cent for it, and you would still sacrifice your time and possibly money to contribute that knowledge to others. Mix this idea with one where your work and play are indistinguishable from each other and you're paid to merely do what you love.  This is the Passionate Zero-Hour Workweek.

What is greatest about this is that anyone can do it. If and only if it is truly your passion and others can see that passion in you. There are people who do this everyday, and they are not all millionaires, but they are all happy -- at least in a human sense, and at least temporarily. These concepts do, at first blush, leave God out. However for a Christian, this makes you reliant on God to help -- for God to step toward the middle as you approach from the other side -- and helps build your relationship with Him further.

I've found it takes a few restless nights and a couple heartbreaks to really start to wrap your head around the whole concept. Sometimes, you can't fully get the idea until you're at the bottom looking up. At some point, when you get it, and decide you're dedicated enough and passionate enough to go for it -- you'll jump off the diving board at the top of this skyscraper of thought and you'll trust God and trust (some of) your built-in instincts to build your own parachute on the way down, deploying it into the wind with enough time to glide over the ocean that separates thinkers from doers and finally come to rest on the other side in the Promised Land.

Turn your thoughts into action and succeed.

I have been thinking a little the last few days about how much different each person's life is, while still being basically the same.  I also blend into my thoughts the idea that everybody has their own story, and how careful we should be before we judge or accuse someone of a wrongdoing or a misstep in their decision making, since we may not know their story or how they got to that decision.

With this in mind, I'd like to reprint my story from September of last year, in the hopes that those who have just begun reading here will get the information they've missed, and that those who have already seen it will be encouraged again.

Everybody has a story.

Each person around you is writing a chapter in their story every second of every minute of every hour of every day.  Each person has a timeline that they are traveling through.  For many of the people you interact with daily, your place on the timeline is not the same as someone else's place on theirs.  Everyone is taking life at their own pace.

When you interact with someone, realize this -- your story of how you got to this very moment is not always public knowledge.  You have your own thoughts, desires and passions that shape your reactions to different experiences that you've had.  Not everyone around you has had that same set of experiences.  And you have not likely had theirs, either.

As you write down your story -- based on the decisions you make and your reaction to things around you -- bear in mind that what may be the last straw for you, on your timeline, may not even be an issue in someone else's journey.  So before you get mad, consider this -- does the person you're about to respond to understand where you are and where you're coming from?  Will they really see it the same way you do -- once you've made your response?  If the answer is not 100% yes, then there should be more thought in your answer.  Period.  I'm as guilty as anyone else.

Consider others.  Everyone has a story -- don't start writing in red on someone else's pages.

"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man."  -Colossians 4:6 KJV

"Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity."  -1 Timothy 4:12

According to John Lennon, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."  I agree.

Life seems to be happening to me quite a bit lately, in one way or another.  Do you know what I mean?  I'm sure you do, given the variables in the business market, jobs, education, work, your home, car and family.  I suppose I've been quite fortunate in many of these areas, but others have not been so lucky.  I serve a mighty God who takes care of me daily.  He takes care of the sparrows -- how much more is my human soul worth than they?  He is willing that all should come to Him for guidance in their daily lives.

Do you ever wonder why progress is sometimes so hard to acheive?  Oh the wealth of knowledge one must pour through in order to find a simple equation to balance the workplace and home, school and church, family and friends, time and money and to simply keep the world put together.  Throw in your own passions and dreams and you will shortly find for yourself a conundrum of thoughts and ideas that conflict with and resist each other, each one vying for its chance to be in the limelight of your 'center of attention'.  I won't claim to have all the answers, but I'm pretty sure there's one part of the equation that remains constant:

( Me + God ) = "It'll be OK"

I'm looking for your feedback:  What plans have you made in the last month or so -- and what has life actually allowed to happen?  Then comes the final question, "What are you going to do about it?"

"And ye shall know that I am the Lord" Ezekiel 37:13

Why does God ask us questions that He already knows the answer to?  Why put us through the trouble of processing the though and deciding upon answer?

God is looking for a willing person to hlep Him.  Does He need us -- no.  Does He want us -- undoubtedly, yes!  Doesn't it feel good to be wanted?  If you read the pasage found at the link above in Ezekiel, you'll see a God who is looking for a willing man.  He asks in the midst of a graveyard, "can these bones live?"  Of course not, not on their own.  Now show a little more faith.  Here's how Ezekiel answers -- "O Lord God, thou knowest."  Makes you wonder how Ezekiel was processing these thoughts.  Was he simply brushing off the question, assuming God had an answer and would tell him, or did he know and trust wholly in his heart that God knows if the bones can live and would make them live, if it were for His glory?

Read on, Jesus stated twice that He would put breath in the bones and cause them to live.  Yet, as the miracle began, He did all but that last part, the breath of life, and entrusted His follower, Ezekiel to speak the words.  Jesus said, "Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD."  Ezekiel simply followed his command and prophesied as unto the Lord and the bones came to life.  Breath was breathed into them.

But that's not all.

Not only did breath come in, but each new body stood up, as a vast army, together in obedience to the command of God.  Ephesians 5:14 shows the same action, saying "Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."

God promised us that if we'll simply follow Him, he will give us the power to serve Him and for Him to work through us, as found in Luke 24:49 "And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high."  Bear in mind, God's power is not meant to be kept to yourself, but to be spread around and passed on.  Don't let the power die with your parent's generation or your generation, pass it to the next group of young adults who come up in your wake.

"Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" 1 John 1:5

"I have overcome the world" -Jesus

So I have a goal on my 43things.com account to learn to play guitar.  Here's how it works (or has worked so far)

Step 1:  Get excited -- done!
Step 2:  Buy guitar -- done!
Step 3:  Throw out all other to-do lists and spend too much time trying to master the guitar in one day. -- done!
Step 4:  Repeat step 3 on a smaller scale...

I'm now ready for step 4.  Wish me luck!