Recently I had one my best friends e-mail me saying, “You are one of the most passionate people I’ve ever known…”

The words my friend wrote encouraged, uplifted and reinforced what I needed to hear, but his words also got me thinking about Obsessive Compulsive Order (O.C.D.).

I checked the Merriam Webster Dictionary and found interesting parallels:

Passion : intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction; an outbreak of anger a: ardent affection b: a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept c: sexual desire d: an object of desire or deep interest

O.C.D : a psychoneurotic disorder in which the patient is beset with obsessions or compulsions or both and suffers extreme anxiety or depression through failure to think the obsessive thoughts or perform the compelling acts

I don’t know about you, but the line between passion and O.C.D. is thin according to our friends at Merriam Webster.

I have been told by many people throughout my life that I am passionate. I am. It is probably my strongest strength. It is also my biggest weakness.

When I am passionate about something I am laser focused. I eat, sleep, dream, think, live and every other adjective you can think of to move my passion forward. But the flip side of the coin is that if something in my life falls outside of my passion, I tend to ignore it and forget about it leaving it unattended. I have gotten better as I have matured and gained wisdom with age, but I still realize that I need to work on these areas in my life.

So the question I am asking myself today is, “Do I have passion or O.C.D.?”

I was listening to an Erwin McManus podcast the other day as he spoke about how he recently took part in a new DNA test. The test reveals information about your ancestry and genetic traits you may have. If you have read any of McManus’s books or heard him speak, you know how passionate he is. So as I write this, I am thinking of his podcast when he shares that his DNA test revealed he may tend to be a little O.C.D. McManus laughed as he shared his results. I believe his exact words were (sarcastically) “I didn’t see that coming!?!”

I love God. I love people. I want to desperately serve the world. I pray that God will flip the switch to the “on position” and my passion will be fully released where He wants it.