Have you also received this very questionable advice: \u201cFollow Your Passion\u201d?<\/p>\n
Good Monday morning to this week 28 of 2019<\/p>\n
A tranquil heart is life to the body, but passion is unwholesomeness to the bones.
\nProverbs 14.30<\/p>\n
Research suggests that telling people to \u201cfind their passion\u201d isn\u2019t just ineffective advice; it can actually be harmful. In a paper\u00a0published last year in the journal\u00a0Psychological Science<\/em>, the authors\u00a0compared the \u201cfixed\u201d theory of passion\u200a\u2014\u200athe notion that passion lives within us, already fully formed and waiting to be discovered\u200a\u2014\u200ato the idea of \u201cdestined\u201d purpose.<\/p>\n Similarly, the authors found that believing in the idea of a singular and innate theory of passion led people to move on too quickly from paths they found interesting but challenging: \u201cUrging people to find their passion may lead them to put all their eggs in one basket,\u201d the researchers wrote, \u201cbut then to drop that basket when it becomes difficult to carry.\u201d<\/p>\n On the other hand, those with a \u201cgrowth\u201d perspective on passion are more likely to see it as a malleable quality that can be cultivated, which makes them both more open and more resilient. This thinking, the authors wrote, \u201cleads people to express greater interest in new areas, to anticipate that pursuing interests will sometimes be challenging, and to maintain greater interest when challenges arise.\u201d A. Beau<\/p>\n Believing you\u2019re only cut out to do one thing makes it easy to get stuck in a rut. But to grow, by definition, means getting unstuck. It means opening yourself up to new ideas and new interests and allowing yourself to be steered by them.<\/p>\n And the best part is? With the thoughts of Intelligent Design and Open Theism, we know there is not only one perfect plan but the perfect plan to all possibilities prepared out there for us.<\/p>\n The Hellenistic philosophers greatly shaped the thinking of the time and influenced much theology and theory of fixed passion living in us. Plato argued that we see not by light entering our eyes (as we now know is the case) but by light proceeding\u00a0out of<\/em>\u00a0our eyes (Timaeus\u00a0<\/em>45b). For Plato, seeing is an\u00a0active<\/em>, not a passive, process. Since knowledge was considered to be a kind of seeing, Plato also construed knowing as\u00a0acting on<\/em>\u00a0something rather than being acted upon (Sophist<\/em>\u00a0248-49). Much of this view of seeing and knowing is picked up and defended even to this day.<\/p>\n Once we abandon the ancient view of seeing and knowing as active processes, it becomes clear that God\u2019s knowledge is perfect if,\u00a0and only if<\/em>, it perfectly conforms\u00a0to the nature of what is known<\/em>. So if possibilities are real, then God\u2019s knowledge is perfect if,\u00a0and only if,<\/em>\u00a0God knows them\u00a0as possibilities<\/em>. God\u00a0always knows everything perfectly<\/em>. Leading is us to this wonderful God of possibilities,\u00a0 even as we believe that a partly open future is exactly fitting to the God of all knowledge, leading us to being\u00a0 part of what God perfectly knows.<\/p>\n Acting and following on the Godly passions, these lead to compassion, and therefore to a much better place then,\u00a0 acting on or following our own passion coming from within!<\/p>\n I wish you a wonderful week as God forms the ways before you in possibilities you couldn’t have imagined.<\/p>\n Philemon<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you also received this very questionable advice: \u201cFollow Your Passion\u201d? Good Monday morning to this week 28 of 2019 A tranquil heart is life to the body, but passion is unwholesomeness to the bones. Proverbs 14.30 Research suggests that telling people to \u201cfind their passion\u201d isn\u2019t just ineffective advice; it can actually be harmful. … <\/p>\n