What Motivates You?

Do you ever wonder how you got where you are? Some people, it seems, are very intentional about what they do. I can remember a 15-year old high school friend telling me, "I'm going to marry so-and-so." It didn't seem to matter that the young man she had set her eyes on was dating her best friend. Well, being a patient soul, she waited until he got tired of her friend and, eventually he became interested in her, and they did get married. They have been married for almost 30 years. I remember other friends telling me, "I'm going to be a preacher." or "I'm going to live in such and such a state.", and today, they are doing just that.

Me? I was going to be a music teacher and teach in a Christian school. Then, I was going to be doctor (I gave up that idea after one semester of premed chemistry.). I switched my major to Music Education. While I was studying music, I worked as a nurses' aid. I gave up the music temporarily to deal with health issues which led me to consider nursing. I applied and was accepted into nursing school. Before I could complete my preliminary nursing classes, I had a change of heart and instead went to a 2-year Bible institute after which I ended up in a language school in France. So many vocational hats have been on my head: missionary, legal secretary, executive assistant, church music director, choir director, wife, home school teacher, mother, and now, among other things, writer (to name some of them).

To someone whose focus is making a lot of money, or marrying the right person, or being the best engineer or the best teacher, my life is a failure, and when I look back at all this hopping around from one profession to another, I sometimes feel driven to despair. I wonder if I will ever know what I want to be when I grow up.

When I have hit the bottom and wallowed in my self pity for long enough, the Lord reminds me that there is something that has motivated me all these years. I remember what drove me and turned me away from one thing and on to another. It was this:

"But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death," Philippians 3:7-10 (ESV)

To someone who is driven by a desire to achieve something, a life like mine looks haphazard and chaotic. Yet in all of this, I see the sovereign hand of God guiding and ordering my steps that I might "win Christ". When I was in my late teens, I remember lying flat on my face on the floor of my bedroom begging God, "Please do not let me be like Judas." Judas was a fake, and I was fake. On the outside, everything looked ordered and settled. I had excellent grades in school, I was well on my way to becoming a fine musician and had already begun my training to be a music teacher. Inside, I was in turmoil, because I knew, deep down, that being a Christian had more to do with knowing Christ personally than it did with outward appearance.

God answered my cry to Him on the floor that night, and it wasn't long after that things began to change. God began to move me from one thing to the next, and with each new experience, He's taught me another aspect of knowing Him, and He has been the source of my joy all these years. So, I ask, "What motivates you?"