What Drives your life

What Drives Your Life?
Everyone’s life is driven by something.
Most dictionaries define the verb drive as “to guide, to control, or to direct.” Whether you are driving a car, a nail, or a golf ball, you are guiding, controlling, and directing it at that moment. What is the driving force in your life? Right now you may be driven by a problem, a pressure, or a deadline. You may be driven by a painful memory, a haunting fear, or an unconscious belief. There are hundreds of circumstances, values, and emotions that can drive your life. Here are five common ones: Many people are driven by guilt. They spend their entire lives running from regrets  and hiding their shame. Guilt-driven people are manipulated by memories. They allow their past to control their future. They often unconsciously punish themselves by sabotaging their own success. In the Bible, when a man named Cain killed his brother, his guilt disconnected
him from feeling God’s presence, and God said, “You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.” That describes most people today—wandering through life without a purpose. We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it. God’s purpose is never limited by your past. He turned a murderer
named Moses into a compassionate leader, and




a coward named Gideon into a courageous
hero, and he can do amazing things with the rest
of your life, too. God specializes in giving people
a fresh start. The Bible says, “What happiness for
those whose guilt has been forgiven. . . What relief
for those who have confessed their sins and God has
cleared their record.”


Many people are driven by resentment.
They hold on to their hurts and never get over
them. Instead of releasing their pain through
forgiveness, they rehearse it over and over in
their minds. Some resentment-driven people
“clam up” and internalize their anger while
others “blow up” and explode it onto others.
Both responses are unhealthy and unhelpful.
Resentment always hurts you more than it does
the person you resent. While your offender has
probably forgotten the offense and gone on
with life, you continue to stew in your past,
perpetuating the pain.
Listen: Those who have hurt you in the
past cannot continue to hurt you now
unless you hold on to the pain through
resentment. Your past is past! Nothing will
change it. You are only hurting yourself with
your bitterness. For your own sake, learn from
it, and then let it go. God’s Word says, “To
worry yourself to death with resentment would be
a foolish, senseless thing to do.”


Many people are driven by fear. These fears
may be a result of a traumatic experience, an
unrealistic expectation, growing up in a highcontrol home, or even genetic predisposition.
Regardless of the cause, fear-driven people often
miss great opportunities because they’re afraid to
venture out. Instead, they play it safe, avoiding
risks and trying to maintain the status quo.
Fear is a self-imposed prison that will keep
you from becoming what God intends for you
to be. The only way to defeat fear is to move
against it with the spiritual weapons of faith
and love. The Bible says,  “Well-formed love
banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful
life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not
yet fully formed in love.”


Many people are driven by materialism.
Their desire to acquire becomes the whole goal
of their lives. This drive to always get more is
based on the misconception that having more
will make me more happy, more important, and
more secure—but all three ideas are untrue.
Possessions only provide temporary happiness.
Because things do not change, we eventually
become bored with them and then want a
newer, bigger, better version.
It’s also a myth that if I get more, I will be
more important. Self-worth and net worth
are not the same. Your value is not determined
by your valuables. God says the most valuable
things in life are not things!
The most common myth about money is
that having more will make me more secure. It


won’t. Wealth can be lost instantly through avariety of uncontrollable factors. Real security
can only be found in that which can never be
taken from you—your relationship to God.
Many 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. Many adults are
still trying to earn the approval of unpleasable
parents. Others are driven by peer pressure,
always worried by what others might think.
Unfortunately, those who follow the crowd
usually get lost in it. I don’t know all the keys
to success, but one key to failure is to try to
please everyone. Being controlled by the opinions of other is a guaranteed way to miss God’s
purposes for your life. Jesus said, “No one can
serve two masters.”


There are other forces that can drive your
life, but they all lead to the same dead end:
unused potential, unnecessary stress, and an
unfulfilled life.
That’s why nothing matters more than
knowing God’s purpose for your life, and
nothing can compensate for not knowing it—
not success, wealth, fame, or pleasure. Without
a purpose, life is motion without meaning,
activity without direction, and events without
reason. Without a purpose, life is trivial, petty,
and pointless.
This booklet will introduce you to the five


purposes you were created for, but first let’s
look at some of the practical benefits of living
a purpose-driven life:
Knowing your purpose gives meaning to
your life. We were made to have meaning.
This is why people try dubious methods, like
astrology or psychics, to discover it. When life
has meaning, you can bear almost anything;
without meaning, nothing is bearable.
Without God, life has no purpose, and
without purpose, life has no meaning. Without
meaning, life has no significance or hope. In the
Bible, many different people expressed this
hopelessness. Isaiah complained,  “I have
labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in
vain and for nothing.”


Job said, “My life drags
by—day after hopeless day”


and “I give up; I
am tired of living. Leave me alone. My life makes
no sense.”


The greatest tragedy is not death,
but life without purpose.
A young man in his twenties wrote, “I feel
like a failure because I’m struggling to become
something, and I don’t even know what it is.
All I know how to do is to get by. Someday, if
I discover my purpose, I’ll feel I’m beginning
to live.”
Hope is as essential to your life as air and
water. You need hope to cope. Dr. Bernie
Siegel found he could predict which of his
cancer patients would go into remission by
asking, “Do you want to live to be one
hundred?” Those with a deep sense of life
purpose answered yes and were the ones most
likely to survive. Hope comes from having a
purpose.
If you have felt hopeless, hold on! Wonderful
changes are going to happen in your life as you
begin to live it on purpose. God says, “I know
what I am planning for you. . . . I have good plans
for you, not plans to hurt you. I will give you hope
and a good future.’”


You may feel you are
facing an impossible situation, but the Bible
says, “God . . . is able to do far more than we
would ever dare to ask or even dream of—
infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires,
thoughts, or hopes.”


Knowing your purpose simplifies your life.
It defines what you do and what you don’t do.
Your purpose becomes the standard you use to
evaluate which activities are essential and which
aren’t. You simply ask, “Does this activity help
me fulfill one of God’s purposes for my life?”
Without a clear purpose you have no foundation on which to base decisions, allocate
your time, and use your resources. You will
tend to make choices based on circumstances,
pressures, and your mood at that moment.
People who don’t know their purpose try to do
too much—and that causes stress, fatigue, and
conflict.
It is impossible to do everything people
want you to do. You have just enough time to
do God’s will. If you can’t get it all done, it
means you’re trying to do more than God
intended for you to do, or, possibly, that you’re
wasting your time in some way. Purpose-driven
living leads to a simpler lifestyle and a saner
schedule. The Bible says, “A pretentious, showy
life is an empty life; a plain and simple life is a
full life.”


It also leads to peace of mind: “You,
Lord, give perfect peace to those who keep their
purpose firm and put their trust in you.”


Knowing your purpose focuses your life.
It concentrates your effort and energy on
what’s important. You become effective by
being selective.
It’s human nature to get distracted by minor
issues. We play Trivial Pursuit with our lives.
Henry David Thoreau observed that people
live lives of “quiet desperation,” but today a
better description is aimless distraction. Many
people are like gyroscopes, spinning around at
a frantic pace but never going anywhere.
Without a clear purpose you will keep changing directions, jobs, relationships, churches, or
other externals—hoping each change will settle
the confusion or fill the emptiness in your heart.
You think, Maybe this time it will be different,
but it doesn’t solve your real problem—a lack
of focus and purpose. The Bible says, “Don’t
live carelessly, unthinkingly. Make sure you understand what the Master wants.”


The power of focusing can be seen in light.


Diffused light has little power or impact, but
you can concentrate its energy by focusing it.
With a magnifying glass, the rays of the sun can
be focused to set grass or paper on fire. When
light is focused even more as a laser beam, it
can cut through steel.
There is nothing quite as potent as a focused
life, one lived on purpose. The men and women
who have made the greatest difference in history
were the most focused. One of the most effective leaders in the Bible, St. Paul, said, “I am
focusing all my energies on this one thing:
Forgetting the past and looking forward to what
lies ahead.”




Have you done that?
If you want your life to have impact, focus it!
Stop dabbling. Stop trying to do it all. Do less.
Prune away even good activities and do only
what matters most. Never confuse activity with
productivity. You can be busy without a
purpose, but what’s the point?  “Let’s keep
focused on that goal, those of us who want
everything God has for us.”


Knowing your purpose energizes your
life. Purpose always produces passion. Nothing
motivates like a clear purpose. On the other
hand, passion dissipates when you lack a
purpose. Just getting out of bed becomes a
major chore. It is usually meaningless work,
not overwork, that wears us down, saps our
strength, and robs our joy.
George Bernard Shaw wrote, “This is the
true joy of life: the being used up for a purpose
recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a
force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little
clot of ailments and grievances, complaining
that the world will not devote itself to making
you happy.”
Knowing your purpose prepares you for
eternity. Many people spend their lives trying
to create a lasting legacy on earth. They want to
be remembered when they’re gone. Yet, what
ultimately matters will not be what others say
about your life but what God says. What people
fail to realize is that all achievements are eventually surpassed: records are broken, reputations
fade, and tributes are forgotten. I once read of
a college student whose only goal was to
become the school’s tennis champion. He felt
proud when his trophy was prominently placed
in the school’s trophy cabinet. Years later,
someone mailed him that trophy. They had
found it in a trashcan when the school was
remodeled! That man said, “Given enough time,
all your trophies will be trashed by someone else!”
He was right.
Living to create an earthly legacy is a shortsighted goal. A wiser use of time is to build an
eternal legacy. You weren’t put on earth to be
remembered. You were put here to prepare
for eternity.
One day you will stand before God, and he
will do an audit of your life, a final exam,
before you enter eternity. The Bible says,
“Remember, each of us will stand personally
before the judgment seat of God. . . . Yes, each of
us will have to give a personal account to God.”


Fortunately, God wants us to pass this test, so
he has given us the questions in advance. From
the Bible we can surmise that God will ask us
two crucial questions:
First, “What did you do with my Son,
Jesus Christ?” God won’t ask about your
religious background or your doctrinal views.
The only thing that will matter is, did you
accept what Jesus did for you and did you learn
to love and trust him? Jesus said, “I am the way
and the truth and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me.”


God wants you to
get to know, love, and trust his Son, Jesus,
whom he sent to earth to show us what God is
like and to forgive and save us.
Second, “What did you do with your
life?” What did you do with all that God gave
you—all your gifts, talents, opportunities,
energy, relationships, and resources? Did you
spend them on yourself, or did you use them
to fulfill God’s purposes for your life?
Preparing you for these two questions is the
goal of this booklet. The first question will
determine  where you spend eternity—with
God or separated from God. The second
question will determine  what you do in
eternity—your responsibilities and rewards in
heaven. By the end of this booklet you will be
ready to answer both questions.


Point to Ponder:  What drives your life?


QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
If you asked your family and friends to describe what drives your life, what driving force or motivations would they mention?
Why do you think most people are not driven and guided by the purpose of their lives?
What habits, or hurts, or hang-ups, or fears might keep you from beginning to live out and enjoy God’s purpose for your life?