A mistake some sensitive Christians make is to try to completely and permanently forsake parts of their lives that are not inherently sinful but which they feel have become too important. Some examples of these not-specifically “Christian” things might include a passion for listening to classical music or painting landscapes or collecting some kind of memorabilia. Believers, especially young believers, sometimes become so alarmed at the power these pastimes and hobbies seem to have over their lives that they treat the object of their passion as something sinful, at least for them, and so they try to “put it down”.
This concern is not always an invalid one. Sometimes pre-conversion passions truly were one way that we tried to fill Pascal’s “God-shaped hole”. As such they were modern day idols in our lives that our new relationship with Christ needed to replace, at least for a time. Often, however, as we grow in our faith-walk we may sense a desire to bring these passions back into our lives, but in a new perspective. We may even sense that the call to pick up these enthusiasms again is coming from God Himself.
I believe this is often the case. Christian singer, song-writer Margaret Becker once shared that she put down her guitar for nine years after her conversion experience. At the end of that near decade of not using her talent for music-making she sensed God telling her to pick-up that guitar again and begin writing songs for His glory. It seems that after a period of “holy reorientation” our Lord will many times bring non-sinful activities back into our lives, this time with a ministry component. When this happens the old interest oftentimes is re-introduced with a sense of joy, fulfillment and “rightness” that was never there during the pre-Christian portion of our lives. When it is subordinated to God the interest in question finally takes its proper role and can be more captivating and satisfying than ever.
The key word here is subordination. The passion has been subordinated or put under God. This is a very different process than what we are to go through with clearly sinful vestiges of our “old” life. Sins are to be mortified or put to death. They can never be brought back into our Christian life because there is nothing in them that can be redeemed. For instance it is one thing to start dancing again, quite another to indulge in our old habit of gossiping.
We often need not permanently put to death an interest or talent that God may want to use as part of our life-ministry. It may well have to be put down for a time and, once the thing is picked back up, properly subordinated to the higher calling of knowing, loving and serving God. It need not, however, be perpetually banished from our lives as if something is inherently wrong with it.
Of course only godly discernment will tell us when and how an old passion should become once more a part of our existence. The development of such discernment takes time too and we should never “rush in where angels fear to tread” in the re-introduction of anything that once served as a God-substitute. But if we trust God, and wait on His perfect timing, we will likely be delighted to once again enjoy something that our heavenly Father never intended to take from us forever
Copyright 2012 by Shea Oakley
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