Driving Force

"May the words of my mouth

and the meditation of my heart

be pleasing in your sight,

O LORD,

my Rock and my Redeemer."

Psalm 19:14

I watched as the bird flitted around in the bushes, singing a song of praise to the One Who made him.  He jumped into the bird bath, relishing the cold water as he splashed and ruffled his downy attire.  Feathers fluttered and wings waved as the created glorified the Creator by behaving as he was meant to live.   

It's so easy for me to get caught up in living my life for me, in a way that pleases myself and depending on my own abilities and strength.  After all, that is how the world around me exists.  But I am not of the world.  I live here, but this is not my home!  As a follower of Christ, I belong to Him and His family.  Like the bird who was created to bring glory to the Creator in the way he lives His life, so I am made to live for Him.  

The driving force of my life could be to succeed by the world's standard, cultivating a successful and meaningful career, marrying and having 2.5 children, a couple of cars in the garage and a mortgage to boot.  Or, the thing that compels me and inspires me to continue on could be to live as God intended me to live when He first created me.

My Motivation

Businesses hire motivational speakers to inspire and drive workers toward a goal of pulling together to improve their performance and enhance the bottom line.  They often use stories of those who have survived unspeakable tragedies and came away with a renewed sense of purpose. 


Most of these kind of motivations for living a meaningful and fruitful life can be quite powerful, but temporary at best.  The drive to be the best I can be fades as the pivotal experience disappears from the reflection found in my rear view mirror.  The influence of the past on my future is limited.


Even my work for the Lord can start to shift toward a worldly campaign.  I can start assessing my success or failure based on statistics or production.  In this way I lose focus with that is important: pleasing God.  


As Oswald Chambers wrote in My Utmost for His Highest, "Never court anything other than the approval of God. . . We have a commercial view--so many souls saved and sanctified, thank God, now it is all right. . . Salvation and sanctification are the work of God's sovereign grace; our work as His disciples is to disciple lives until they are wholly yielded to God.  One life wholly devoted to God is of more value to God than one hundred lives simply awakened by His Spirit."  


If my goal is to triumph in the eyes of the world, I will be driven by the need to achieve.  But if my aim is to please God, I will perceive things from a godly point-of-view, focusing on the things that are important to God.   


David understood this principle; the motivation for most of his life was to win God's heart.  This showed most poignantly after he realized and repented of his sin with Bathsheba.  He knew the evil things that he had done were committed against God himself.  Then he prayed, "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me."  (Psalm 51:10)


For all those months he had been living to please himself, and his actions, his words, his heart were all an abomination to God.  As he came back to a right relationship with his Father, he knew that his highest desire must return to what it was before: to please God and God alone.


If the driving force of my life is to bring delight to my Lord, then the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart will be pleasing to Him. 

My Help

I remember this huge boulder in my neighbors yard when I was growing up.  It was said to have come from Mt. Rainier, a dormant volcano which loomed in my childhood skyline.  The nice couple that lived next door allowed me and my friends to play on the giant rock.  We would dig little caves underneath for our dolls, or make homes for ourselves between the trees and the hardness of the stone.  Sometimes we'd climb up on top and imagine ourselves to be explorers of a new region, setting our eyes on the fertile landscape for the first time.  We loved that rock. 

It's kind of like God in my life.  He is the fortress where I can take shelter from the harshness of the world.  When the going gets tough, I can find refuge in Him, like a safe haven that goes with me wherever I go.  During the times when flaming arrows of life are hurling toward me, He stands between me and the danger, keeping me from harm.  He is the strength that saves me.  (Psalm 18:2) 

I am often tempted to find help in other places.  I run to my friends or family, asking them for advice and guidance.  I expect my husband to always protect me.  I am hurt when friends don't provide the safe place I am looking for, instead pointing a finger and tell me where I'm wrong.  I try to find comfort and shelter in the pursuit of my hobbies, the affection of my pets or the satisfaction of a job well done.  Eventually, they all fall short.  I still need help.  

As the psalmist reminds me in Psalm 46:1, "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble."  Instead of going to other sources for my support, I need look no further than God.  He is always ready to help, whenever I am ready to receive.

If I look to other things for my source of help, then I will leave myself vulnerable.  If, instead, I trust in God as my ever-present source of help, then I will stand strong as a mighty oak.  

My Inspiration

Job was given a raw deal.  He lived his life in a way that please God, but the Lord allowed Satan to test him, giving him one heartbreak after another.  In one day he lost all of his children and all of his possessions in a series of unprovoked attacks and tragedies. As if this weren't enough, he was then inflicted with a horrible skin disease that covered his entire body.  Job suffered greatly.

Despite all this pain and anguish, Job did not blame God.  He lamented, he mourned, he questioned the purpose of his existence, but he didn't point the finger at His Creator.  How was he able to carry on?  The answer lies in Job 19:25-27 when he proclaimed, "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.  And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes--I, and not another.  How my heart yearns within me!"  

The hope that inspired Job to drive on, day after day as he sat in pain and suffering, was that the One who had bought him from certain death was alive and he would one day see Him face to face.  This can be our hope as well. 

Jesus made a way for me to live forever with Him when he took the punishment meant for me and my sin.  In this way, God bought me back from slavery to sin and the indebtedness I carried against Him.  I have been redeemed.  And because of this, I have hope for my future.

If the hope I have for life eternal through faith in Jesus is my inspiration, then I can endure any calamity or circumstance God brings my way.

God intends me to live in a way that glorifies Him.  But I can't do that when I am distracted by all the desires, temptations and difficulties that come my way.  If, instead, I focus on pleasing God as my motivation, trusting in Him as my help, and remembering the hope I have to give me inspiration, then I will please God as the birds do. 

As I begin this day it is my prayer that I can strive to please God and make that my driving force.

How do I find my motivation in other areas besides in pleasing God?

When do I take shelter in the arms of others instead of in my Rock?