Your Motivation Matters

We’re now into the second week of the New Year. After last week’s overwhelming bustle, the gym and pool at the YMCA are beginning to clear out again. Some people make it into February with their resolutions, but many don’t make it beyond the third or fourth attempt at starting a new way of life.

By no means am I an expert in life, productivity, or consistency in all things. I’ve overworked, I’ve been underproductive, I’ve had success for a while but also failed in attempts at staying in decent physical shape.

However, based on my observations in my own life, the reading I’ve done, and everything I’ve heard from lifestyle gurus, one of the keys to sustainability is the question, “Why?”

That’s where, I think, many of our best intended life changes fall down. It’s also the reason that so many of our seemingly positive actions really end up being self-worshiping sin, rather than God-honoring work.

Don’t Stop Believing

In the so-called Hall of Faith of Hebrews 11, we get an important message: “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (11:6).

This verse is sandwiched between Enoch’s assumption into heaven and Noah’s faithful building of the ark. What becomes clear, however, is that “faith” in this context is not as much about the mindset of the person who has it as much as it is in the nature of the object of the faith.

Enoch believed that God exists and sought to know him more. But more significant is that the God whom Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and all the boys in the band actually exists and that his character is knowable.

We tend to place the emphasis in Noah and the story of the flood on the construction of the ark, but it seems to me that his “reverent fear” (v. 7) is really the more important thing. And not that he had reverent fear, but that he understood that the warning he received was from a real being (the creator of the universe, according to v. 3) who was going to do what he promised in judging the earth through a catastrophic flood. Anyone could have built the ark; the why really matters.

Had Noah built the ark as a tourist trap, an evangelistic outreach, or to promote his particular views on the nature of God, then even if floated and saved his family physically, the effort would have been spiritually vain. The “why” question matters when it comes to actions. As Psalm 127 says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain” (v. 1). The Psalmist isn’t suggesting that God supernaturally actually builds certain houses, but rather is poetically stating that awareness and desire to glorify God should be the animating purpose behind construction.

Don’t stop believing, but it’s the object of faith (God) not the subject who believes (us) or the strength of our belief that matters.

The Why Question

All of that brings us back the importance of the understanding why we do what we do as a means of pursuing particular goals.

A goal of reading 52 books in the current year is great, but if the why beneath the goal is to be smarter than the next person, to have a longer “read this year” list than your internet neighbor, or simply to check a bunch of entries off the “must-read” list of books, then the achievement will lead to failure, whether or not you hit your goal. The why matters.

A self-congratulatory Facebook post in late December or early January has a certain reward, with all the books listed out or the triumphant announcement of success. Yet the time will have been wasted unless some deeper purpose was achieved. Were you changed by what you read? Did you gain a deeper understanding of a subject? Did it form you toward some aspect of improved character? These are important foundational questions. And, ultimately, were these things done for self-glorification rather than as unto the Lord?

Did you lose 50 pounds in the last year? Great! Why? Was it so that you look better and can get compliments? That reward will fail when you hit middle age and no one cares how good you look. Was it for longevity? A good motivation, in one sense, but why do you want to live longer? One of the reasons I workout regularly is so I can be a high-functioning senior citizen, but that’s with the ultimate aim of being able to contribute to my local church, enjoy my grandchildren, and (I hope) do things as unto the Lord. Merely becoming fit won’t get me out of bed to swim at 5:30 AM in the middle of winter, but recognizing that each workout is an attempt at being able to serve God a little longer makes it easier. And, to be honest, the days when I skip the workout and eat the extra portion or sneak a little something on the side are the days when I’ve lost the bigger picture and see my fitness goals as the top priority.

When Paul warns servants to do their work “as for the Lord” (Col 3:23) he is getting at this why. Obviously, we’ve got to work so we keep a job in order to eat (or for slaves, so they didn’t get punished), but that’s not enough. We have to focus on the next deeper question to have success. We have to see God as the final object of our efforts if they are going to have real merit. And, I think, we are more likely to have new habits or behaviors stick if we make God’s glory the animating purpose of our actions.