Welcome to the Pure Passion Series!
So it was a while ago when I started this crazy series. I’ve been remembering and re-reading and smiling at the absurdity of it.
I am sure I am not following the blog rules in frequency or length…or topic?
I’ve decided to let go of that goal and others too.
You see, if I cared to do it right, I wouldn’t, couldn’t do it at all.
That’s the point of today’s post. Reminding myself and you that it’s not about goals, but Glory.
When I started this series with the big dreams (they’re all still there), I had all of the ideas how it would unfold, on this blog and in my life. Some of it has been realized and a lot would be considered a failure. The cynical side of me says that the Dreamer should have learned her lesson. The hopeful side of me knows that dreams are full of disappointments and waiting as they take fledgling flight and crash and burn only to be re-born.
And in that waiting and crashing, the ebb and flow of reality, or what I think is reality, is transformed by Glory.
So, yes, this whole Pure Passion journey is not about goals but Glory.
What does that mean?
It means that everything good that has come is to God’s glory and not my own. When it doesn’t look how I think it should, and there’s failure in the perspective of goals, that is actually a very good thing. Because I cannot boast in what I have achieved through this blog or in my marriage, but I glory in God.
Practically, it is a continual mental, emotional, even physical process of laying down goals in sex. It’s embracing the less-than-perfect and worshiping the God of Glory and all that He promises sex can be as I see what it represents eternally; a perfect, forever union with Him.
You see, it’s the only reason I have kept going and have any desire to keep going when I am dry and done. The promise of Glory. The hope of Heaven. And the joy of embracing the WHOLE of life as a journey Home, to His Everlasting Arms.
I am as much of a perfectionist as there is. So none of this is said lightly. And, you know what, it is all magnified in sexual intimacy. Every pattern that stakes claim on life as my own and what I think it should be.
An awareness of this would certainly lead to despair if I set up deep-seeded standards for myself. I would fail and fail and fail and when that’s done, fail some more.
But there is always, always, always the chance to turn away from ALL of that, really the grasping for my own achievement or glory, and turn to the One who is the radiance of the Glory of God.
In Him I find all I need to take the next step towards increasingly pure passion. I have decided that understanding sexuality and sexual intimacy in marriage provides the deepest most honest look I can take at myself and also the greatest opportunity to depend on what Christ has done.
Again, let me be practical. So my idea of a great night with my hubby is NOT going how I thought it would, in fact it’s going the opposite. What do I do? Focusing on goals makes me angry and frustrated and I have definitely been there. But more and more I am gazing on the gift, my hubby 🙂 and the God-smiling-down-upon-us sex that is absolutely His desire for us as we cling to the redeeming work of Christ…making all things new. Glory is changing me, us. And I am continually embracing that I would not have it any other way.
This is why I am going to keep taking the leap and living pure passion and writing about it too. I am learning that all of the goals that are in my life are about achieving my own righteousness and glory. But the Glory of God? That’s about gazing upon Christ and His work. All finished. Debts paid in full. Every bit of fallen life bought back to become brilliant and His.
And this is where I testify that living, learning and writing in the context of understanding and embracing pure passion is taking me places I wouldn’t have gone otherwise. I am seeing God reach into dark corners that I have held back from Him. And every resistance shows me the truth about myself. My intense rebellion against God and my hubby, wanting to keep life for myself instead of laying it down that I might know Christ and so make Him known.
And I can only take the next step by gazing on Glory. On Christ who gave it all to the point of death and asks me to know His love, know Him, by becoming like Him. And this means death in all things (to goals and achievement in…anything) so that His life would become mine and I would be re-made through and for His Glory.
And just this :: to exchange goals for Glory in one-flesh relationship is incredibly fulfilling. I choose Glory and I see it and know it in a spectacular way that is changing me from the deepest places so that I might pour it out… (and with all of my heart and soul I say, you who are reading, this can be your journey too!)
Sharing with Jen, Laura, Kelli and Jennifer
Read the Entire Pure Passion Series here!
