Don't Avoid; Pursue

I want to write a few posts about motivation.

Something I've noticed in myself and in our culture in general is that we often act out of fear. We do a lot of what we do because we want to avoid something bad. For example:

• Students (including this one) do assignments to avoid getting bad grades, instead of in hopes of learning.
• Hundreds of commercials are devoted to reminding husbands to buy something nice for their wives for Christmas/Valentine's Day/birthday to avoid messing up and making her mad, not with the goal of making her happy.
• We pay taxes and generally obey the law (when someone is watching) because we don't want to be punished, not because we want what's best for society and respect the leaders and laws of our land.
• We put money in the offering plate to avoid looking like a tightwad.
• We keep up appearances to avoid scorn, not to value what we have/are.

In terms of Christianity, I think many of us have messed that up too. Instead of pursuing the joy of the Lord, we are looking to avoid His wrath. I heard a great line from my pastor a couple of weeks ago: "Christianity is not a 'Get Out of Hell Free' card." He's right. The wrath of God is righteous and scary and should be feared; however, the promise of following Christ is not the avoidance of hell; it's the offer of an eternity of pure and perfect joy.

Christian or non, let's let our motivation in all things be gain, not avoidance. Pursue the good available to you this week.