What Motivates You?

What motivates you? What makes you wake up in the morning to face all the tasks and challenges that await you throughout the day?

Unfortunately, fear is a big factor, isn’t it? The fear of all the negative consequences if you don’t do any of the tasks—the fear of failing your class, the fear of what that will do to your GPA and your prospect of getting a job or going to a graduate school in the future, the fear of disappointing your parents, etc. Fear causes stress; it is not comfortable at all. But they say that a certain amount of stress helps us to get things done.

Another form of fear is the fear of other’s disapproval and rejection. How many unpleasant things do we do because we fear what others think of us? How many things do we give up for the same reason? This may not be all bad because not everything we want to do is good just as not everything we find distasteful is bad for us.

While fear may be an effective motivator, it can paralyze us, too. When the fear-induced stress is too great, it can immobilize us and stop us from trying our best. What if we try our best and still fall short? How devastating! So, we choose not to do our best. That way, we can retain that hope that, if we try our best, we can make it. But is that a hope or an illusion?

A nobler form of motivation is a sense of duty. When motivated by duty, we are not driven by the fear of negative consequences; instead, we are driven to do what is right despite the prospect of possible complications. You call a foul on yourself when playing a game because that is what sportsmanship calls for. When you find a wallet with a lot of cash, you return it to the owner because it is the right thing to do, not because of any fear. When you take an exam, you choose not to cheat, hopefully not because you are afraid of getting caught, but because it is a wrong thing to do. A person who lives by duty rather than fear is happier and more respectable.

But how important this sense of duty is to us? A general said, “Whether I live or die is not important. What’s important to me is that I do what is right whether I live or die.” Are we willing to go that far?

There is an even nobler form of motivation—love. Duty may be admirable, but it feels cold. Love adds warmth to duty. There is a world of difference between the way a babysitter takes care of a child, and a mom takes care of her child. It’s the difference between duty and love. Love does not evade duty; it even goes beyond the call of duty. We often grit our teeth to perform our duty, but we smile when we show love. When helped by a dutiful person, we can feel small. When helped by a loving person, we feel safe and respected.

Love makes our duty light and delightful. Instead of focusing on the burden of carrying out our duty, love makes us delight in the good we bring to our loved ones. The problem is that we are not always motivated by love. Even when motivated by love, our love is not so pure all the time. We often love, expecting our love to be recipro-cated. When our love returns to us void, we get upset, even moms.

The Bible says that this is because we are not “full.” We are made in God’s image. As such, we are made with a God-shaped vacuum in our souls, which only God can fill. That vacuum is the reason that our pursuits in life often turn excessive and addictive. This vacuum is also what makes our love conditional: we love out of the desire to fill that void. The only way to fill that void is to be reconciled with God. For as sinners, we are at enmity with God. Jesus came to reconcile us to God by laying down His life to pay the penalty of our sins. If we trust what Jesus did for us, we can receive His forgiveness and have our God-shaped vacuum filled with God. Only then can we love unconditionally: “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Then, His satisfying love for you will be the motivation of all that you do, setting you free from fear and the burden of duty.