Motivation=heart change+perseverance+hope

What is motivation?

Where does motivation come from?

I believe it starts with a heart change; allowing God to do a work within us. We first must make the choice, allow God to move, take action, and have some type of hope within it all.

What keeps us going, when we have nothing left to give? When our muscles are utterly exhausted from running for hours on end, how do we find the strength to keep going? I’m not an experienced runner, but I do know, that when I set my mind to it; I can run farther than my body wants to go. I can push myself beyond the limit.
Motivation is the initial will of a person. Nothing can stop a person that is single-minded. When you listen to someone who is determined about something, anything, it’s like a dart determined to be loosened from the grip of a thrower.
Unfortunately motivation can have the wrong starting and finishing point. For example, Hitler was determined to extinguish the Jews. I wonder what his initial heart response was in the beginning towards Jews? Did he have a Jewish neighbor who beat him up every day or kill someone dear to him? Who knows. Within my heart I know what he did was wrong, unjust and inhumane. His motives were wrong from the start. He kept living and breathing from those motivations, with the wrong type of hope as well. The hope of exterminating a whole race.

If your hope is in God, your motivations will be fruitful. When I think of this, what automatically comes to mind is African people. They are some of the hardest workers I know. They know they don’t make much, but try everything they can and work as hard as they can to make a living. Or the people who hope someday to have a degree and a job. They are motivated! They work two 9-5 jobs, have 3 kids, and go to school 5 days a week 7-10pm Monday-Friday. No complaining when the baby cries, and studying their brains off til the wee hours of the morning so that their family can have a better life.

Motivation is a powerful thing. It can be used for good or for bad. How do we put the world back in a place to motivate others to motivate themselves? To be the change we want to see in the world? A change of heart, perseverance, and hope. Waking up at 4 in the morning to jog, not giving up on a project you started 10 years ago, continuing to pray even though you haven’t seen a change. Picking up the dart to throw it, pulling back your hand to throw, focusing your eye on the bulls eye and throwing the dart full speed ahead.