For the four weeks leading up to Christmas I decided to turn down my invites to the usual parties and give the time to drawing close to God. It wasn't much of a sacrifice, I wasn't feeling in the party mood. I had an emptiness I knew needed filling.

The words, 'There's got to be more to life than this,' rang out in my head. And that's the strange thing, because I'm in a place of total contentment. I've left behind all the trappings that used to bring me down, all the desires that used to consume me have fallen away as empty dreams with no substance, knowing they don’t satisfy alone. And God’s given me everything I need physically, in abundance. So why the emptiness?

After 4 weeks spent mostly alone with God I still felt the same. I wanted more of him. I was feeling disconnected to life and the world. All I desired was to hear from him and be with him, yet I couldn’t get as close as I wanted.

These thoughts went round in my mind: ‘If heaven and God are all I want, my one desire, then I might as well go there right now if I can’t get more of God here. What purpose have I here? I love my life and all he’s given but something is missing. It’s got something to do with Jesus but I don’t know what.’

A quiet Christmas day night in thought lead onto my first seasonal party outing on Boxing Day. There I met a woman who told me what God had been doing in her life. Her story was one of great passion for children no one else wanted. She told me of her struggle and rejections from authorities to allow her to adopt abused children with heroin addiction, a new born baby and a 2 year old that she’d fostered and loved. Her eyes filled with tears as she told me about these children and others she’d cared for and how God had worked in their lives.

That was when I realized what I was missing. She had something I didn’t have, a passion I didn’t have, a passion for things in this world that God had created. And for her she has a passion for things in this world that would not be easy to love that don’t give instant gratification but instead take some sacrifice of self.

And then the penny dropped. The whole of the bible is about a passion for the world, about what is going on here, about the people here and saving them, not about heaven. What happens here matters to God and he’s passionate about all that’s here. Heaven joins in with this battle for the world and I’m here in it. Yet what am I doing here as part of it? I had become so heavenly focused I was losing focus on my earthly good.

The Lord’s heart is for the lost. Passion for the world and all those in it is at the heart of God. I need this passion in the area he’s calling me to. I began to pray for God to give me a passion for wherever he was calling me to so that I could make a difference here on earth for him and those around me.

A month or so on and I’m still heavenly focused, but I’ve got a passion for this world, to bless it with all I have, with all the comfort and peace God’s given me. He’s shown me where my personal mission field is and that I have to leave something of him, his love and care, with everyone I meet.

We are the extension of his hand into the world and he uses us to meet the needs of others. maybe just a warm smile and a friendly word, or something bigger. That’s why we are here. The warmth of his presence is in us and we carry that out, leaving what we can with those we brush past in life. He cares because he’s got a passion for each person.

There is more to life than knowing Jesus, there’s being Jesus to others.

Luke 10v2 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few'

John 15v17 'This is my command: Love one another'