You want to be successful, you want to be fulfilled, and you want to live a life of purpose. In other words you are no longer satisfied with just the ordinary; you want to live the extraordinary life. Yet something in your mind is keeping you from making this a reality. That something is the voice of reason.
Now reason is a good thing. It is the minds ability to think, understand, and form judgments through the process of logic. Yet there is a dark side to reason. It can cause us to have self limiting thoughts. This often occurs when we as humans seek to grow ourselves. When we seek to step out of the parameters of ordinary and stretch ourselves to something greater than what we currently are, we often encounter resistance from the voice of reason.
Too often we give reason the ability to quench the fire of our passion. Passion helps us step out in faith, pursue our dreams, answer God’s calling on our life, and fulfill our purpose. Reason relies upon logic and logic can serve as a blockade to our dreams. Logic says, “You can’t do that, you don’t have what it takes, that’s impossible, someone else is better suited than you…” and a vast host of other discouraging thoughts. Reason requires that the next step of your journey is clearly outlined with guaranteed results. But this isn’t how life works. In life you have to take chances. This is why you cannot allow the voice of reason to drown out your passion.
Passion is the necessary element for life’s greatest achievements. Passion causes us to push through life’s obstacles and operate in our greatest potential, and passion has created some of the greatest men and women who have ever walked this earth.
For example, the voice of reason told Nelson Mandela to leave well enough alone. The rights of his people weren’t worth risking the peace and comfort of home, but passion said Nelson was created to be a social engineer and to change the lives of a nation. Reason told the Wright Brothers that they were wasting their time, resources, and efforts on an impossible dream, but passion said the ability to travel through the crisp blue sky was worth every sacrifice. Reason told Harriet Tubman that she was sure to meet her death while traveling along the Underground Railroad, but passion wouldn’t allow here to enjoy freedom while her people were in bondage. Finally, the voice of reason told Jesus that putting on the garment of humanity didn’t makes sense and that we weren’t worth the sacrifice, but passion said you and I were worth dying for.
Do you see my point? If we rely solely upon reason we risk reasoning ourselves out of accomplishing what God designed for us to accomplish. There comes a point in each of our lives where we have to allow passion to override the voice of reason. Imagine how much different the world would be if Nelson Mandela, the Wright Brothers or Harriet Tubman had listened to the voice of reason. How much different could your life be if you allowed your passions to drown out the voice of reason? More importantly, how bleak would our future be if Jesus had chosen reason over passion?
Homework: Take a moment and write down the things you are passionate about. On the other side of the paper write down all the “reasons” you’ve allowed to serve as road blocks to your passions. Now think about someone you admire who pursued their passions. Did they have similar road blocks? Did they allow the roadblocks of reason to hinder them? Take some time to reflect on this and pray that God will empower you to pursue the passions He has placed in your spirit, and then go do it!
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