Welcome to “Sunday Inspiration,” a bi-weekly devotional for those seeking spiritual encouragement in the pursuit of their passions. Each post comes from an outside resource (as referenced). I hope these posts will inspire and motivate you in your life and career in addition to our weekly original blog posts. Enjoy!
Matthew Kelly, internationally acclaimed speaker, author, and business consultant, on discovering your passion:
Once we know what we love doing—once we know what produces that timelessness, that incredible experience of just time passing and being completely immersed in something and not even recognizing the passing of time—not everyone can then turn around and go off and do that as their full-time job.
We do have responsibilities in our lives that very often prevent us from doing whatever we want to do with our lives.
And that’s real, and that’s practical. And it’s dishonest for me to pretend otherwise.
It’s like that lie we tell kids, “You can do anything you want.”
I don’t want to be presenting the adult version of that.
The reality is, you do have to pay your bills. The reality is, you may have a family to support.
But you can take baby steps towards it. You can do some piece of it. You can do it for a couple of hours a week. And maybe that’s enough to feed that part of your soul that needs that.
But the thing that stops us, the thing that holds us back, the obstacle, the challenge: fear. It’s always fear. It’s always been fear. It’ll always be fear.
The most common phrase that appears in the Bible:
“Do not be afraid.”
The most common thing Jesus said was:
“Do not be afraid.”
The most common thing Jesus said wasn’t “Love everybody.” The most common thing Jesus said wasn’t any of a thousand other things that people would say if you asked them on the street, “What do you think the most common thing Jesus said was?” Most people come up with, “Oh, love other people how you want to be loved,” or, you know, those kinds of things.
But no, the most common thing he said was:
“Do not be afraid.”
We’re afraid of losing things.
We’re afraid things won’t work out the way we want them to, or hope they will.
We’re afraid of failing.
And sometimes, we’re afraid of succeeding.
But over and over again, God’s message to humanity is:
“Do not be afraid.”
Sean Ferguson, Mission Partner at Dynamic Catholic:
On April 8, 2015, I was coming home from a campus ministry meeting at the University of Dayton. At 7:13 PM, I was struck by lightning as I was walking through the parking lot.
Immediately, I collapsed to the ground and was unconscious. The nerves in my lower legs were severely damaged, and I was unable to walk or stand.
Sitting in my hospital bed and wondering, “Would I ever be able to walk again?” was one of the most overwhelming feelings I’ve had in my life.
The doctors emphasized that my recovery would happen in very small, incremental stages of the physical rehabilitation process.
Talk about literally needing to take baby steps to get back to the life of a normal twenty-three-year-old again.
A goal that I set for myself was that I would one day climb a mountain.
For two straight years, I went through intense rehabilitation.
This past August, I stood atop Croagh Patrick after climbing the 2,500-foot mountain off the coast of Ireland.
Each baby step that I took during my rehabilitation led me to reaching my ultimate goal of this amazing mountaintop moment.
What’s your baby step?
Source: http://go.dynamiccatholic.com/yDaHgPqS0f0FOHA1ld00010
