Emotions Over Proper Intelligence: The Danger of Passion Within Service

Last week, I had one of the best conversations I've had in quite a while...and it all started off as a complete train wreck.  A good friend of mine who's consistently active in the Central Virginia community with youth basketball, mentoring, and a variety of other community service ventures posted some of his usual informative and inspiring quotes on Instagram.  In seeing one that referred to an unjust incarceration, I was so appalled by the incident that I did my research to see if it was true....and it was, with some additional information.  In my haste, I included that information on his post, which was not well-received.  However, because we are men, we had a phone call and smoothed it all out.  And as soon as I hung up the phone the Holy Spirit started dealing with me on some things...some of which I'd like to share with y'all.

There are those of us who are repulsed at the way our youth (and even some of us adults) conduct themselves on a daily basis.  Now, while some of these actions are due to ignorance or a willingness to be unproductive, uneducated, and unaware; most of it comes from oppression and are the results of the withholding of information and resources.  We enlightened ones have hence taken it upon ourselves to correct these social ills with the tools we have available; with the most used tool being our mouths.  Unfortunately, we don't take into account the other items that may not necessarily be tools...but still fill our bags.  Items like relentless drive, ambition, pride, and passion for change are sometimes like nails...with our mouths being the hammer.  I believe that more times than we'd like to admit, those nails are often driven inaccurately.

Tempers start boiling, things start being said out of context (or even maliciously), and feelings get hurt...all because we keepers of the flame are trying to help someone less fortunate.  Our egos have officially blocked the way for others to be free.  Our passion has become intermingled with pride; and the object of our driving work suffers.

W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington suffered from this.  Their agreed upon goal of African-American empowerment was often challenged with their own personal ideals of what that empowerment should look like.  In similar fashion, modern Christianity pioneers Paul and Barnabas disagreed to the point where they didn't even minister together after establishing very strong church bases (Acts 15:36-41).  In both examples it was pure, human emotions that hindered the full potential of social revolution; stifling the complete will of God.

Working in the community can leave little room for much needed emotional processing; as well as self-evaluation.  And I dare to say that even in the moments of personal review we don't consider that the person doing the reviewing is the person who's being reviewed.  And so we rarely get to ask ourselves questions like how often am I really wrong and how many people did I hurt.  We generally move around crowning ourselves as the authority, determining that our stances are the bottom line, claiming our feelings to be the priority...when in fact, we can easily point back to the errors that ruined productive relationships to us.

What if DuBois and Washington decided to consistently agree despite their differences in philosophy?  Would African-American males have a different perception of education today? What would've happened if Paul and Barnabas worked out something where Mark (the subject of their disagreement) was present only 50% of the time?  Would more people be saved?  How many ministerial partnerships in history have been broken because of personal passions and differences, and have resulted in souls being lost?  I'm sure that number is in the billions.  Community leader, ministry worker, will you add to that number?  Or will you be mature, be humble, and be committed to the work and not to your emotions?

Being passionate should never result in abuse.  But when it does, your team and everyone who needs your help gets....abused.

Peace