Passion!

Passion!

On a recent grocery store run, I witnessed a heart-stopping toddler meltdown: the kind of have-a-fit-and-fall-in-it moment every mother alive can probably identify with. This little boy’s piercing screams made me wonder if he might be tangled in the shopping cart or experiencing some kind of excruciating torture. Then he found his words and through a barrage of tears bellowed, “I want it! I want it!”

Heads were turning. And he was serious.

As I pushed my cart out the door, I considered this mom and her unhinged little boy. I don’t know what he wanted—probably something placed at a child’s level (wicked marketers!) near the checkout, just when mom must have thought she was home free. But this little guy wasn’t ambiguous about his wants. No sirree. His desire had some real passion behind it.

I thought about this kid long after I’d left the store. And I wondered, Etiquette and adult decorum aside, is there anything I want that much? Anything I am that desperate about? Anything I might, in my most unguarded moments, plead for that passionately?

If there is not, there should be. Big things like “Your kingdom come” and “Your will be done” (Matthew 6:10) and “Love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind” (Matthew 22:37) and “Be holy” (1 Peter 1:16). I should want these things—really want them—with a passion that gets the best of me at times and destroys my ability to keep my emotion in check for fear of alarming the neighbors. I shouldn’t disdain such desperation. I should welcome it.

I don’t know what the little guy at the grocery store wanted. By now he’s surely over it, whatever it was. But I don’t want to be over my longing for God and for his Kingdom, ever. I want it. I want it! I do! Help me, Lord Jesus, to always want more of you.

While following the way of Your judgments, O LORD, we have waited for You eagerly; Your name, even Your memory, is the desire of our souls. At night my soul longs for You, indeed, my spirit within me seeks You diligently.

Isaiah 26:8-9, NASB