Almost everyone knows what they do. Some even know how they do it. But very few know why. The “what” is a person’s actions, maybe their job title. The “how” is the behavior, the method, and the routines that allow a person to accomplish what they do. The “why” is the heartbeat behind it all… a person’s motivation for doing what they do or being as they are.
Earlier this week, we learned the importance of discovering our “why”… because as our heartbeats give life to our bodies, our whys give life to what we do. So our teachers posed the question to us: Why are you here doing what you’re doing? Why am I in Georgia when I could instead be at home? Why am I choosing to continue this missions-learning-lifestyle when I could have gotten a job? Why did I follow my heart here when my brain was trying to talk me out of it?
Before I left for the World Race, my Aunt Jill & Uncle Todd taught me something that stuck with me the whole time and has impacted me more than I thought it would. They said, “You can’t fix all their problems, but you can escort them to the gates of Heaven.” It takes me back to the feeding center in Costa Rica where so many of the children we grew to love were abused daily. We couldn’t fix that. No matter how much love we showed those kids, they would soon go home to a family that didn’t show this same love. But what we could do was teach them about Jesus, someone they can cling to when everything around them is falling apart. It takes me back to Swaziland where more children than not are orphaned because of AIDS. We looked into the eyes of these kids and wished that they didn’t have to be hungry or scared or alone. But we couldn’t fix that. We could feed them, but we couldn’t keep them from ever being hungry again. We couldn’t bring back their parents. But what we could do was make sure they knew about a God who loves them. Some might argue that it does no good to help people know The Lord but leave them in their suffering… but this is exactly the point of escorting them to the gates of heaven. Because when they have Jesus, they will one day be delivered from all the suffering in this world, no matter how much they experience during their lifetime. And this is the most real and forever-reaching change we could ever make in a person’s life.
This is my why. Because my heart has always beat to serve the needy, but God used my Race to teach me about “escorting them to the gates of heaven”… this idea that we can’t fix all the problems of this world for a person, but we can give them Jesus. And this is the one thing that matters. Without this eternal perspective, everything else seems to matter a lot less. I feel like the calling on my life is to share God with others, and I’m on a journey of discovering what He wants that to look like. I still have a lot to find, learn, and grow in, but knowing my why gives me a whole new kind of motivation to do that.
Whether you already know your “what” or are still trying to find it, my challenge to you is to figure out your “WHY”… because when you know this, whatever you do will have so much more meaning and power.
