I was up in the wee hours that morning, trying to get a head start on the day. Computer on, coffee steaming, papers right there, I was ready to work.
But also, our baby was playing at my feet with our three cats, and every ninety seconds I was interrupted by trying to protect them from his violent affection..except for Knightley.
I didn’t have to move her, because she moved herself. A few days earlier, little Finn had attempted to use her tail as a leash and now she didn’t need my protection; she was highly motivated to stay out of his reach.
Sometimes we need a little motivation to move us.
That morning, I needed some myself as I was looking at ten pages of fine print that needed read and signed. I scanned ahead for any pictures or graphs to break it up a little, but nope, no extra white space at all, just big words in tiny font, all the legal details about Us, Them, and the Agreement.
We were in the process of revising and re-launching my first book with a publisher, and I needed the motivation of partnership and accountability. Because I know me.
I wanted to do the project, but on my own, I’d put it off, think about it for a few more years, and feel incompetent and not-enough about the hard parts until I finally gave up on ever doing it and felt like a loser. Big sad face.
But now, with this paperwork in hand, I was highly motivated to move – not only to get it done, but to also pull other projects forward that had been simmering on the backburner.
God was talking to me a lot then (as He is now) about cooperating with change: How do we do the work that needs to be done, and find joy in the process?
That was one of the seasons with nursing babies, middle of the night wake ups, and diaper changes in a dark room. He was my fifth baby so I knew all the moves, but sometimes babies still fight like mad against being changed.
So there I was, in an exhausted stupor, barely conscious. It was like trying to put a snowsuit on a fractious baby kangaroo while blindfolded. And also, bonus challenge: If you don’t hurry up and finish in time, the kangaroo will pee on you.
If you’d stop kicking, we could do this faster and get it over with. The second I thought it, I realized God had been telling me the same thing for who knows how long. I had my own things I was writhing and whining and trying to sleep through, ignoring the need to change.
These restless and edgy seasons warn us that change is ahead. But unless we’re really motivated, our relative comfort will keep us from being willing to expose ourselves to something new and fresh that is better for us.
We will all be changed, though. So, how long will we waste time resisting it?
Sometimes we’d rather wallow in fitfulness. We’d rather ignore it until it reaches the tipping point, and something motivates us to move, to get up and do the thing we’ve been avoiding.
Motivation is important; it’s the fuel behind our choices, our work, and our change. In Him we live and move and have our being, and we are meant to live and move and be in joy, not resentment or reluctance.
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.— Psalm 139:23-24
We don’t always need more tools or help or clarity to convince us to do what needs doing.
We need the want-to.
For example, if dentists really wanted us to floss, they wouldn’t lecture and send us home with another packet of tooth floss destined to be used twice and then lost in a bathroom drawer.
Nope. You want someone to floss? Send them home with kettle corn and little samples of beef jerky. That’s motivation.
We might make excuses about needing the right tools, time, or ability, but usually it’s not about those things at all. If we’re procrastinating or resisting the Lord, we probably already have everything we need to get what we want. We just don’t want it bad enough.
I’ve always known that drinking plenty of water keeps us healthy, but I never drank enough of it because the reasoning was just so…vague. Water, boring; coffee, better. But then I had emergency surgery and learned, Wow, water helps you keep your organs. That’s highly motivating.
I started eating more spicy food to motivate myself to drink more water. I also constantly encouraged our kids to drink more water, which they totally loved, as you can imagine.
Sometimes it went like this:
Teenage boy comes to the kitchen and asks for a drink from the fridge. I tell him, Yes, but drink some plain water first.
He says, No thanks, he doesn’t want it that bad.
(That’s my boy. Spitting image, sometimes.)
But then in a move of brilliance that can only be credited to the Holy Spirit’s prompting, I start eating pico de gallo. For the sake of this story, you should probably know that Vince got tired of me eating all of the pico and he made that particular batch with an extra serrano pepper and the tears of Hades. He denied it, but I know his tricks and ways, and I persevered, anyway – two extra glasses of water down the hatch, no problem.
And this was the batch I was eating when I offered Afton a chip. And if you give a boy a tortilla chip, he’s going to want some pico to go with it.
“Whoa,” he said, and coughed a little.
“Now you want some water, don’t you?”
And he did. Two cups down the hatch, no problem.
God can show us how to want something badly enough if we ask Him. But are we willing to ask?
I think He longs to make it easier on us. He wants us to see the way He does.
Even in that hard thing — the one we know we need to do but we just don’t aren’t motivated enough — God knows us. He’s a good father, and He knows how to give us the want-to. If we’re willing to change, we’ll get it faster.
This post was adapted from a chapter in my book Obedience to Move Forward, book 5 in the ABIDE series.
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