Guilty For Not Being Passionate

There is a low daily guilt that a great many people carry, and it is unusual because they could not tell you what they are guilty of.

Picture the woman carrying it. She works in an accounts department. She does her job well. She is honest, she is on time, she is kind to the people around her, and she has never once been in trouble for anything.

And she feels guilty, quietly, most days.

If you asked her what for, she would struggle. She would say something about not being passionate about it, and then hear how that sounds, and then say it is silly.

It is not silly. It is entirely real and it is doing real damage, and the reason it never lifts is worth understanding.

Guilt is a response to something done or left undone. It is designed for actions. You can repent of an action, or correct it, or make it right, and the guilt resolves, because it has somewhere to go.

She has been charged with a feeling.

And a feeling cannot be repented of, or corrected, or produced on demand. So the charge sits there permanently, with no possible resolution, because there is no action available that would answer it.

That is why nine years of trying to feel more about accounts has changed nothing, and why every conference talk about passion leaves her worse than it found her, and why the guilt is exactly the same on the days she does the job well as on the days she does not.

What is actually asked for

There is a sentence in Colossians that covers every action a person takes, and what it asks for is not a feeling.

And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. (Colossians 3:17, King James Version)

Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed.

That is the widest possible scope. Everything is in it. And what is asked for within that scope is a manner rather than an emotion. Do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Give thanks.

Both of those are things a person can do while feeling nothing at all.

You are asked for a manner rather than for a feeling, and Colossians 3 says do all in the name of the Lord Jesus and gives no instruction about enthusiasm (Colossians 3:17), and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an available instruction out of what has been an impossible one.

And a few verses later he says it again, with the word people usually misread.

And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. (Colossians 3:23)

Heartily.

That word does not mean enthusiastically. It is the word for from the soul, which is about wholeness rather than about eagerness. It means the whole of you is in the doing of it, which is a completely different thing from the whole of you enjoying it.

You have been asked to do a thing wholly rather than to feel about it warmly, and Colossians 3:23 uses a word about the soul being in the work rather than about eagerness (Colossians 3:23), and the Spirit of God is the one who supplies the wholeness on a Tuesday morning in accounts.

To the glory of God

There is a line in First Corinthians that goes further down into the ordinary than almost anything else in the New Testament.

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)

Whether ye eat or drink.

He starts with the two most unremarkable actions a human being performs. Not preaching. Not giving. Eating and drinking, which are things a person does three times a day without a single thought.

And those are included in the same sentence as whatsoever ye do, and the whole lot is directed to the glory of God.

Which means glory is not attached to the significance of the action. It is attached to the direction it is pointed in.

You are able to point an unremarkable action somewhere, and 1 Corinthians 10 starts with eating and drinking before it says whatsoever ye do (1 Corinthians 10:31), and it is the Holy Spirit who does something with a direction that a person could never do with a feeling.

You have not been failing at anything anybody asked for, and 1 Corinthians 10:31 asks for a direction rather than for a passion (1 Corinthians 10:31), and the Spirit of God is the one who drops a charge that was never properly filed.

What this is not

Let me be plain, because this could be misread as lowering something.

This is not saying enthusiasm is bad or that people who have it are doing something wrong. Some people love their work and that is a good gift.

It is also not saying she should stop caring about doing the job well. She should not, and she does not, and that has never been the problem.

And it is not saying she should feel nothing about her working life. There is a real question about whether a person is in the right place, and that question is worth asking. It is just not the same as this one, and the guilt has been preventing her from asking the real question by keeping her busy with a fake one.

And plainly: if the guilt has become the kind that does not lift about anything, if you cannot get out of bed, or if some part of you wants it all to stop, that is bigger than a job. Call or text the 988 crisis line, and say the true version out loud to a doctor or a counselor or a pastor you trust. Getting help is not weakness.

You are not being told to expect less of your own life, and Colossians 3 raises the scope to whatsoever rather than lowering any standard (Colossians 3:17), and the Holy Spirit is the one who removes a false charge without removing anything true.