External Motivations

Oftentimes, especially within certain circles, it is of extreme importance to be motivated in life by the internal versus external events.  While it’s true that God judges the heart (see Jeremiah 11:20, 1 Corinthians 4:5, and Hebrews 4:12), that doesn’t mean that the heart cannot be moved in the right direction through external events.  Who of us can say that our moral judgements were determined solely on our own just by thinking about these ideals and putting them in our hearts and not by our parents, family, friends, our own experiences, the Word, or encouragement from others?  Not I.

If we all walked around with the mind of Socrates then maybe we would take the time to think about every possible ethical situation and get it all sorted out within our own minds, on our own.  Short of that, I think most everyone has some motivation that comes from the internal and some that comes from the external.  In my own opinion, the world would be a better place if people did take more time to sort through ethics and their stance on right and wrong, but things can improve even through the proper external motivation.  For example, I think most people would say that at least one law (and probably thousands more) has improved their lives or has kept their lives within a state that is pleasing to them.  For me, I believe that as annoying as speed limits are to some people, they are beneficial for our society.  Without these limits I think many more accidents would be happening on our roads, so while that external law doesn’t help the internal thoughts of some people, it does prevent them from hurting others or being killed themselves.

My thoughts on improving the world may seem grandiose, but hopefully seeing the example of traffic laws as helpful in our lives shows how external motivations can be helpful even on smaller levels.   The key is that external events or motivations can only help us as far as our internal responses will let them.  If someone chooses to drive 100 miles an hour down the road despite a 70 mile an hour speed limit then their internal motivation was not changed by the external factors.  Therefore, we see that those who take external events and allow those to shape their internal motivations and behaviors may be just as right in their heart as if they’d thought of it all by themselves.

To bring home my internal motivation for wanting to write this piece I want to share that I started within a networking company a year ago and had done almost nothing.  However, when my wife and I had a child and she left work to raise him, I had a lot of external events that helped shape my internal motivation – which has led me to be much more productive.  Were she to go back to work again (another external change), I believe that because of how the external events have shaped and changed my internal motivation that I would continue to do what I have been doing, rather than going back to the state I had been in before.  Thoughts?