Serving the Lord wholeheartedly

I've done everything I can think of to put off writing this column this week. I watched part of the closing ceremony of the Olympics. I ate a Popsicle (but technically that was multi-tasking -- I did that while watching the Olympics.) I went to bed and slept an extra hour and a half longer than planned because no ideas magically appeared in my mind from my subconscious overnight.

I looked up Bible verses. I straightened my hair and put on makeup, hoping that looking professional would tell my brain and my will it's time to get down to business. Now I'm facing the truth: it's the last hour and forty-five minutes allotted in my schedule to write, and there are only a few badly written notes staring at me from my computer screen. I am not being wholehearted.

Now that I'm being honest, I'm getting somewhere.

There's a couple things I've been thinking about a lot the past few weeks. One of them is passion. People who pursue their passion make me stand in awe. I want to be around them. They ignite a deep yearning inside my soul that makes me want to spend all of myself on something that matters, something that will exhaust me and yet somehow be life-giving, something kind of crazy that I am meant to do.

Jenna Jones, a woman who's a mom and has turned her purse-making hobby into a business, told me, "I prayed for God to give me my passion." Jesus' Passion meant suffering for something he loved with all of himself. I want that, and I want the courage to use my passion to serve the Lord when I've found it, or at least the courage to embark on the journey of figuring it out.

The other thing I've been thinking about a lot is the four words "with all your heart." They appear in two Scripture verses that have been on my mind: Proverbs 3:5, which says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart" and Jeremiah 29:13-14, which says, "Yes, when you seek me with all your heart, you will find me with you, says the Lord."

I've been wrapped in these verses because of my realization that I want to be wholehearted. I want my heart to be whole, and I want to use all of it to serve the Lord in whatever forms that may take. I don't want there to be any pieces of me left somewhere else that aren't engaged in loving God, the people he's placed around me, and the work he's given me to do. I want to be wholehearted in studying, going to class and doing homework. I want to be wholehearted in my daily phone conversations with my family while I'm away at school. I want to be wholehearted in spending time with Jesus and in worshipping him.

Wholehearted passion becomes natural when I'm seeking the Lord's heart with all my heart, knowing that his Passion on the cross was me.

Mia Pohlman is a Perryville, Mo., native studying at Truman State University. She loves performing, God and the color purple -- not necessarily in that order.