If you follow this blog/podcast you know that I teach high school students. One reason I enjoy it is because I get to be involved in their lives at a point where they are making key decisions and developing core disciplines which will influence the rest of their lives. In my career readiness class students explore fundamental questions like who am I, where am I going, and how will I get there. My son is also a high school student. Last week, I interviewed him for this podcast. One of the questions he answered related to his motivation, or his “why”, regarding running and his faith in God. With a new year beginning, perhaps you have been thinking about these types of questions. The quality of your life, your impact on others, and your destiny are determined by what drives you. No matter what stage of life you are at, it’s important to know where you are headed, not just with a career, but also in your character development, your values, your decision making, and your relationships with others and, most importantly, with God.
Drive
Everyone is driven by something. That drive takes you somewhere. Most people’s drive revolves around personal pleasure, security, or success—which could be achievement, wealth, status, fame, possessions, power, or knowledge. Some people are driven by a lack of something. For instance, instead of security or comfort they are driven by fear. Instead of clarity and truth, they are driven by misunderstanding. Instead of affirmation they are driven by shame or guilt. Instead of love they are driven by hate, anger, or bitterness. Even wandering, aimlessness, or apathy is a drive, but it takes you nowhere. Musonius Rufus, a first-century Roman philosopher, made an interesting observation regarding motivation, “If you accomplish something good with hard work, the labor passes quickly, but the good endures; if you do something shameful in pursuit of pleasure, the pleasure passes quickly, but the shame endures.”
Only Jesus Can Help You Know God
A similar dichotomy occurs in relation to God. For some people, the more they think they understand about God the less they trust him. However, that’s because they suffer a warped perspective like looking through fractured glass. Their concept of God is driven by a misrepresentation of him due to trauma, pride, waywardness, ignorance, or lies. Yet healthy relationships must be based on truth. The truth is God loves you and wants your best (John 3:16; Romans 5:8). He gave his son, Jesus, to make that possible. So instead of trusting him less due to any current understanding. You should trust him more due to your lack of proper understanding. Only by seeking the truth will you really get to know God for who he actually is. Jesus taught people, “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8). Don’t settle for what you have heard about God or what you think he might be like. Ask him directly to reveal himself to you. Bring him your questions and doubts. Look into who Jesus is, what he said, and what he did.
Jesus is God the Son, who became a man in order to save all who trust in him. You can learn about Jesus from the Bible. The book of John is a great place to start reading. By dying the death that you deserve for your wrongdoing, Jesus removed the barrier that separates you from God. Through his death and resurrection he enabled you to know God and experience his abundant, everlasting life (1 Corinthians 15:20-23). No one comes to God except through Jesus (John 14:6). We are all broken in our souls because by default we chose to live life on our own terms instead of God’s (Isaiah 53:6). Fortunately, that’s why Jesus came. He said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:16-17). The first step to restoration is to admit your need for Jesus.
Surrender Instead of Driving
Getting to know God takes time. The process involves seeking the truth and humbly being open to what you learn from him. So pull the car over, move to the passenger seat, and let God drive. As God shows you things about yourself and about him, surrender to him what needs to change in your understanding, your character, or your behavior. Rely on him to bring about that change. We are all broken and in need of a savior (Romans 3:23, 6:23-24). Jesus is your answer. He is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James 4:10). Confess any wrongdoing and receive the forgiveness he promises to give (1 John 1:9). Then ask him to show you and empower you to live rightly. When your first and foremost desire becomes Jesus alone, just himself—when knowing him, loving him, pleasing him, and sharing him with others drives you, then you are headed in the most glorious direction. God transforms you to become like Jesus. Your life takes on a divine purpose, joy, and destination in alignment with God’s plan for the entire universe which is to bring all things under the benevolent and righteous rule of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:24-28). In tragic contrast, when your drive is to fulfill yourself instead of to deny yourself so God can fill you, then your destination is death. If you reject Jesus you forfeit your soul and separate yourself from God and all that is good, right, and loving. Eventually this will result in eternal torment when you die or at the end of this age when Jesus returns to consummate his kingdom on earth (Luke 16:19-31; Revelation 19:11-21:8).
Conclusion
What drives you? Where are you headed? If your own pleasure or striving for success drive you instead of a desire to know God and share him with others than you are headed in the wrong direction. If you are driven by guilt, fear, shame, hatred, anger, or bitterness, it’s a downward spiral to nowhere good. Fortunately, it’s not too late to turn around. Come to God for the first time or come back to him if you have drifted. Humbly surrender to God and let him heal your brokenness and fill your emptiness with himself. Trust and obey God and he will direct your steps (Proverbs 3:5-6). He will impart his love, wisdom, peace, power, maturity, and righteousness through Jesus and you will experience his abundant life now and forever (Proverbs 22:4). I’ll finish this note with a prayer for direction. The original author is unknown, but some have attributed it to Sir Francis Drake, one of the first explorers to circumnavigate the world.
Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love. Amen.