At the risk of sounding like a crotchety old man, our society definitely has a problem with sacrificing for and enduring passion. Especially if the reward is not readily apparent. We let our ‘click button-get reward’ attitude govern everything from where and what we eat to how we determine to live our lives in many cases. Sometimes we find it much easier to buy ourselves in distractions and baser ‘passions’ for the sake of avoiding our feelings or dealing with something that we need to do that we know will be unpleasant. Like the smoker who will definitely quit ‘after this one more pack,’ we put off again and again the thing that we need to do because it feels easier to stay the way we are or to avoid the painful thing. The wild thing is, of course, that we often find ourselves in even worse trouble for trying to avoid failure or by resisting doing something we think will be unpleasant.

We can have a world where all of us, sons and daughters of Almighty God, are so brilliantly visible, that like Valentine, Perpetua and Felicity, Paul, Steven, Andrew, Sebastian, Francis, and so many others we can be living witnesses and bring the light of Christ to the world. At the risk of making it sound simple, all we have to do is put our trust in God to see us through. Remember, that through his faith and trust in Christ, Peter walked on water, and even though he faltered, he called out to our Lord, and was saved.

1 Corinthians 13: 1-13 | “The greatest of these is love.”