A couple of months ago, Melissa and I traveled to Phoenix, Arizona for a week. We planned to spend time with friends in the Trueface ministry, as well as doing some site-seeing and hiking in and around Phoenix. We thoroughly enjoyed it. One of our stops was a local farmer’s market. Melissa loves those things. We had some unbelievably good tamales. They were so good, in fact, that we bought extras to put in our hotel fridge for another meal.
Months after this trip, one individual that we met continues to find his way into my thoughts frequently. His name was Albert. He rented a booth at the farmer’s market. He sold baklava and spanakopita that he prepared himself. After stopping to chat with him, we learned quickly that selling and making a profit were not his top priority. Albert’s wisdom was something I had not expected when I first encountered him. I actually remember thinking he was “just another salesman”. Nothing was further from the truth. He wanted to get to know people. He loved his conversation with us. As we passed by later, I saw him enjoying conversation with someone else that had stopped to see what he was offering. He had so much more to offer than pastry.
Albert wasn’t just another salesman.
There are a few things that I learned or was reminded of in my experience with Albert. First, relationships are important. Very important. In fact, they are of the upmost importance. In his 90 years on this planet, Albert had learned that authentically engaging people in order to do nothing more than to get to know them would provide much satisfaction.
Albert also desired to pass something special on to those who were willing to stop and converse with him. He encouraged Melissa a great deal, making sincere eye contact with her as he offered her some recipes that she might would enjoy making for herself and me later.
Last, but certainly not least, Albert encouraged me with a piece of wisdom he had obtained during his lifetime. “If you don’t love what you are doing, go find something you do love and start doing that!”, he said. He said this with enthusiasm and assurance, which I believe was due to the fact that he had discovered this through personal experience. He found that he enjoyed making baklava and spanakopita, so he started making them more often (at the advice of his son). He enjoyed people, so he found a way to be around people and enjoy them. He was genuinely one of the happiest people I have ever met, even though I know he had had his share of hardship like the rest of us.
Finding our true passions is important, but we must first know ourselves.
I have struggled a great deal, as I’m sure some of you reading this have, in finding something I love doing. In this fast-paced life, it is so often hard to find the time to even look for something we might enjoy trying out and experiencing. Albert’s advice didn’t lead to me quitting my job, or at least not yet. And it did not push me to jump into something on a whim. However, his words have resonated with me as I have considered what it is that I truly love doing. What is my passion?
Our passions have strong ties to who we really are (who God created us to be). If we know who we really are, we are much closer to discovering our true passions. God had helped Albert discover who He was. He was a people lover and enjoyed making pastries. Once he embraced those truths, he was on his way to be able to do those things in the settings God would take him into. That didn’t mean that things wouldn’t be tough sometimes. However, as Jim Carrey once said in a commencement speech, ““You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.” Essentially, we can risk failure while doing something we love or we can try to avoid failure while doing something we hate. Failure, hardship, and hurt are inevitable parts of our journey in life, regardless of what path we choose. Why not risk a path we might actually enjoy going down?
When we continuously give into the pressure of this world to wear masks, we miss opportunities for God to reveal to us the desires He has placed in our hearts. Albert shared of times in his life in which he had not been himself and done things that, quite frankly, made him miserable. Our true desires are the passions that, if pursued, open up the doors to peace and satisfaction. As Paul said in Ephesians 2:10 (ESV): “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
God wants us to be able to live out of who He created us to be. That’s how we get to experience the great things He has planned for us.
Our Father doesn’t want us to burden ourselves with pursuing things that have no eternal value. He would love to see us free from the trap of pretending to be something we were never intended to be. See, God doesn’t really want us striving to be something different, despite what we may have been told. If that was the case, what’s the point in Grace, and Jesus, and faith??? Instead of self effort, He wants us to trust Him and embrace the truth of who He created us to be. He knows that when we trust Him with ourselves, we can be led into those good works (passions) that he has instilled in us from the beginning.
But this “trust” is not easy. It feels very, very risky. We must not over-spiritualize it to the point that we just say “we will pray about it” and not practically engage it in everyday life. One of the most difficult but rewarding things I’ve learned is that my relationship with God and others is intertwined. If I am trusting God with myself, I will be trusting others with myself as well. That is the most practical way to live out my faith that I know of. The act of opening myself up to someone does something in me that I could never do myself. It’s the true definition of humility. One thing humility offers is the opportunity to zero in on who I really am and be able to live passionately out of my true identity.
-Neil
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