Equipping young women professionals with young families to find fulfillment, contentment and joy as mothers and home makers without losing sight of who they are as women.

Volume 06, Issue 17: What Drives Your Life?

Everyone is driven by something. Take a moment to consider the driving force in your life. This would help you get started in straightening things out sooner rather than later should you need to.

What is the driving force in your life?

Materialism

Many people are driven by materialism. Their desire to acquire becomes the whole goal of their lives. This drive to always want more is based on the misconception that having more will make them happier, more important, and more secure. Only, they never get satisfied because possessions only provide temporary happiness. Self–worth and net–worth are not the same. Your value is not determined by your valuables, and God says the most valuable things in life are not things!

Fame

Some people are driven by fame. Their need for notoriety, being noticed and applauded, and their success being talked about is stronger that their commitment to keep doing what got them in the spot light in the first place.

Approval

Some people are driven by the need for approval. They allow the expectations of parents or spouses or children or teachers or friends to control their lives. Others are driven by peer pressure, always worried by what others might think.

Guilt

Many people are driven by guilt. They allow their past to control their future. Each of us is a product of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it. God specializes in giving people a fresh start.

Resentment and anger

Many people are driven by resentment and anger. They hold on to hurts and never get over them. Resentment always hurts you more than it does the person you resent. Your past is past! Nothing will change it. For your own sake, learn from it, and then let it go.

Fear

Some people are driven by the fear of what might happen. Regardless of the cause of the fear, fear–driven people often miss great opportunities because they are afraid to venture out. Instead they play it safe, avoiding risks and trying to maintain the status quo.

Pleasure

Some people are driven by pleasure. They surrender themselves to a life of endless partying, revelry and other forms of personal gratification.

Success

Some people are driven by the need to become a raving success. They will stop at nothing in their pursuit for success. In the process, they neglect other areas of their lives such are physical health, spiritual well-being, close relationships, friendships. Many families are sacrificed at the altar of personal success.

Purpose

When living for God’s pleasure is the driving force of your life, you do not know how you could enjoy anything without God; not wealth, not success, not family, not fame, not anything; apart from his presence. It is at this point that all your success and relationships have meaning. You know deep down that your success means nothing without him. You are enjoying life not because of your wealth or your job or your family or notoriety, but because God is at the center of it all.

When God is the driving force of your life, you surrender your fears to him; you let him deal with your past, and heal your hurts; he becomes your success, the reason for your success, your motivation to do it well; you know he loves you, so his approval is all you need; and you find pleasure in him.

I am persuaded to believe that nothing matters more than having God’s at the center of your life, and nothing can compensate for not having him at the center – not success, not wealth, not fame, not family and friends, not pleasure. Without God, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction, and events without reason. Without God, life is empty, trivial, petty and pointless.

Lillian Chebosi