Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on 7th December 2020 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and competence.
Story: The Enemy of Your Passion
The sudden halt in the rotation of the wheels of his 2018 Toyota Corolla brought a sour taste to the air in his lungs. He was sure he had everything fixed before embarking on the journey. The automobile engineer had assured him the car wouldn’t develop fault anytime soon. He’d the gasoline station fill his tank just before reaching the outskirts of the city.
He had taken time to plan out the journey and this wasn’t what he had expected after working so hard to achieve a ‘hitch-free’ journey. Having made sure everything was in place, he cared less about occasionally checking the fuel gauge. Alas! The tank had been leaking in bits for about 4hours. What will he do now? It was 1 am.
Passion is the fuel in the engine of your desire or goal. It’s what keeps you going even when all you get is ‘nay.’ It’s what increases your “resistance level” to discouragement. Passion is key to accomplishing every desire and goal in life that’s why the enemy of your potential will try his best to see you lose it. When you lose your passion for achieving a goal, you lose a lot of things and aides that will make whatever you envision, realise. (we will discuss these in the “effects of losing passion below.”)
The story above reveals to us a strategy of the enemy of our potential;
“…Alas! The tank had been leaking in bits for about 4hours. What will he do at that moment?…”
The enemy doesn’t just pop up and place your way a mighty log of wood to stop you from making progress. He nibbles your aides, one at a time and your passion is the first. He primitively makes you doubt if your goal is achievable and makes you believe you aren’t enough for the task. He is at his best to frustrate you to dim your passion. At most points, you often feel all is good but a closer view of what’s happening behind the scenes will give you a clue that something is wrong, which to you, might not matter much at that moment. What the enemy does is craftily eat up your passion slowly, over time that one day you will just wake up and develop an apathy for your goal.
Effects Of Losing Passion
Here are a few consequences of loosing your passion in whatever you aim at achieving.
1. You Lose Your Focus
The enemy knows if he can get your passion, then your focus on your goal is something he can easily win. Hence, you become distracted from adopting the right and necessary principles to achieve the goal.
Also read: Tips to avoid missing opportunities
2. Misplaced Priorities
When the enemy gets hold of your passion, you begin to consider those things that matter less, first. While those that matter more, subsequently. Your scale of preference will experience a shift that will affect the results you hope to achieve, negatively.
3. Delayed Result
When you lose your passion, what you could have achieved in 24 hours can be achieved in 14 days or 1 month. That’s how powerful losing one’s passion is.
Having known the effects of losing one’s passion, let’s look at ways to reclaim that lost treasure.
Ways To Reignite Lost Passion
1. Develop Self-Control
Paul addressing the Corinthians said;
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training… Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” (see 1Cor. 9:24-27)
Paul was trying to help the Corinthians understand the power of self-discipline in achieving goals in life. Self-control is disciplining yourself to avoid being easy prey to the strategies of the enemy. When the enemy of your potential knows all he needs to eliminate your passion is to make you destructively compare yourself, doubt your journey, or even place limitations on your way, he will just try to make sure that your passion becomes dim that it can’t light up your path and get you focused.
When you develop self-control, the enemy of your potential will find it hard to get you distracted with things or even your weaknesses because you have disciplined yourself to achieve your goal regardless of how the enemy tries to eliminate your passion.
2. Be Sensitive; Little Things Matter
We learned that the enemy nibbles our passion over time until we wake up someday and suddenly realize it’s all gone. Hence, one of the ways to avoid this is by being sensitive enough to know when you start losing it; finding it hard to focus, a drop in your interest level, and the like. Give attention to those little symptoms and fix them before they escalate.
Paul encapsulated the definition of being sensitive in his letter to the Corinthians. “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong.” (see 1 Cor. 16:13) He encouraged them to be sensitive by being on guard and standing firm lest the enemy tries to start deploying his evil strategies.
Also read: Struggling to forgive yourself of your past? Read this.
3. Stop Doubting; Start Trusting
One of the tools the enemy uses is self-doubt; “Is this vision worth it?” “what if I don’t achieve it?” “What if this, what if that.?” These are questions that flit through your mind when you start having self-doubt and this has the power to deplete the layers of your passion. When you notice an increased tendency to doubt yourself, give yourself reasons to trust your journey and consistently do that through affirming positive statements to yourself.
4. Stop Condemning; Start Affirming Positively
The enemy loves to remind you of past failures and inefficiencies so you can limit yourself and drain out the fuel (passion) that drives you. Condemnation is so powerful that it murders passion in splits of seconds. If condemnation, which is “negative affirmation” buries passion six feet down, that means positive affirmations have the power to resurrect or exhume passion. One thing Paul reminds us is, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (see Romans 8:1) Hence, regardless of how the enemy twists the statement to make you feel less and invaluable, always remember that the author of your being have passed a verdict already, concerning that.
Also read: What is the difference between purpose and destiny? Learn here.
The Book of Revelation spots the power of affirmations in conquering the enemy. “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” (see Revelation 12:11) this reveals how testifying or affirming the right words to yourself can save you from the enemy or save your passion, which will save your dream, vision or goal.
Having known that, let’s look at some positive statements that can save us avoid losing our passion to the enemy, or reclaim the stolen passion.
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Thanks for this wonderful writeup