No Motivation? The King is Calling!

I don't post here often enough because, quite often, when I sit down to write the inspiration just doesn't strike.  I usually try to force some words out and put together the semblance of a blog post, but it all sounds unnatural and wrong, so I backspace and stare at a blank screen for a while before giving up. 

Sometimes this upsets me and throws me into moments of doubt.  When I started this blog I could feel God inspiring me all the time, sometimes several times a week, or even more than once a day, but it just doesn't come that way anymore.  Do I not pray enough?  Am I reading the wrong Bible verses?  Am I not listening for God throughout the day?  I panic.  Why doesn't this come easily anymore?

I'm beginning to find that motivation and inspiration for many things in my life may not always come easily, but I have to push through it and make it work anyway.  I have to write English term papers whether or not any of the works from class inspired a literary argument in my mind.  I have to find a way to push myself through a workout whether or not I have much motivation that day.  And I should sit down and think about how God is working in my life and the world around me and take time to formulate it into words even when it doesn't come easily.

This blog has been such a gift throughout my formative years, in that it caused me to think deeply about God's presence in my life and how He was working on me, and I am so blessed that He used it to not only help me, but to reach others.  Now is my time to be faithful to Him and continue listening and using this gift that He's given me despite His voice only seeming to be a whisper.

What gifts has God given you to further His Kingdom?  Are you using them to the fullest to serve Him and those around you?  God calls each of us to serve Him in different ways, and we must answer His call to us even when we lose the motivation and inspiration.  He is constantly calling you to something, even if it isn't what you want to do or be.  He's never going to let you waste your life.  If it feels like He isn't calling you to anything listener longer and harder.  I know that He's going to use you for something great, even if you have little motivation, desire, or even ability to do it.  He will provide.  He will call.  His Kingdom will be grown.

Legacy

Legacies.  A legacy is what we leave behind when our time comes, and what we're remembered for.  Legacies tend to reflect how much a person loved God and loved others in life. 

When Jesus was asked which of the commandments was the most important, he answered "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:30-31).  Jesus boiled down the purpose of our lives to love God and to love others.  He gives us a bit more direction in this in the Great Commission: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19).  This is the kind of legacy we should be living now, leaving behind later, when we join our Father in Heaven.

People remember you for how you make them feel, not necessarily for what you do.  A good teacher is not remembered only because of the knowledge that they passed to their students, but also, often more so, because they made the student feel valued, regardless of how quickly or how well the student learned the material.  A good parent is not remembered for the number of presents under the Christmas tree, but for the times they were cheering at soccer games, for the times their child felt loved and worthy of love.  These are just two examples, but this is true, at least in my life, in almost every situation.

Legacies go deeper than this, though.  You are also especially remembered for the way you react in times of trouble.  "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body" (2 Corinthians 4:8-10).  The Message version of verse ten helps us to understand its meaning, "What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives!"  One of the reasons that we face these trials in life is to help fulfill the Great Commission.  Jesus' love for the Father and for His people, us, didn't falter in times of trouble.  Jesus should be our guide in life, and this is His example.  When Jesus was on the cross, dying not because of anything that He had done, but because of our sins, we mocked and scoffed at Him, but He asked God to forgive us, when we deserved it least, "Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34).  This is a difficult example to follow, but we can draw strength from Jesus' words.  Right after Jesus gave the Great Commission He also gave this encouragement "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).

When we react to trials as Jesus did, we are building a legacy for God.  In all of this, the goal isn't to be remembered as "a good person".  The goal should be to be remembered as men and women of God.  I want to leave behind a legacy that God smiles on. 

Senioritis: A Shorter List

They say "senioritis" is a bad thing.  You get into college, and you stop trying.  You get lazy.  But I think that they're wrong.  Don't get me wrong, the traditional definition of senioritis is something to avoid, but that doesn't mean that senioritis that doesn't affect your school work is awful.

Since getting into college (Grove City College class of 2018, wooho!) I have not felt the need to slack in my schoolwork.  Since starting senior year, however, I have found that I no longer feel the need to live up to the standards of everyone around me.  I don't need to be actively involved in six different friend groups to be happy.  In fact, all that does is burn me out.  So why was I doing it until this year?

That answer is simple: because, up until this year, I was holding myself to the standards of my friends, my parents, myself, and God.  This year, I've been trying to narrow that list down to being only God.  I want my standards for myself to reflect God's, so that's an easy one to attempt to check off.  I may not have realized it until this year, but my parents' standards for me have reflected God's all along, so that one is even easier to check off.  

Ah, but then there are my friends.  I spend approximately thirty five hours a week in school with these people and then however more time after school and on the weekends, how am I supposed to just ignore them?  But, there, my friends, is the problem.  I'm not supposed to ignore them.  I'm just not supposed to be focusing on who they want me to be.  And this year has shown me the importance of that.  How many of these "friends" will I actually be in regular contact with after a month or two of our freshmen year in college?  Five, six, maybe?  So if I'm only going to remain friends with five or six of these people, why have I been struggling so hard to live up to the standards of so many more?  So there I can cross off most of the people from the friends part of my list.

"What about those five or six, though, Abby?" you ask.  Ah, well here is the best part.  Those five or six people don't have standards for me beyond the most basic of God's standards.  They just want me to be, well, me.

So now my list of standard setters is down to just one.  God.  And man, do I wish I had figured this all out a while ago, because it is just so calming to know that they only standards and judgements that matter now are God's, and His standards will only lead me down a path that I want to follow, that will not leave me weary. 

So call it some form of senioritis, if you may, but it is far from laziness and a feeling of being done.  It comes from a realization that God is the only true judge, that there is no use in exhausting myself to live up to the rest of the world's standards.  Isaiah 40:31 says "But those who hope in The Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."  Narrowing my list of people who set standards for me to God and only God is not lazy, it does not lighten the workload, but it gives the strength needed to do everything that God wishes me to do and strive to live up to each of the standards that He sets.