What Drives your Missional Motives?
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a pretty driven person. I have pushed myself to succeed, stepped into leadership positions that were over my head and often found myself dreaming of what could be. Of course, I’ve done all this for the advancement of the Kingdom and the spread of the Gospel…or at least that is what I thought.
In recent years I’ve done much reflecting about what really drives my missional motives. I’ve thought more reflectively about what stirs my soul to join Jesus in His mission. What I’ve come to find is that what drives me on Jesus’ mission is often not what drives Him.
I’m not the smartest tool in the shed, but I think it is a problem if what motivates me in the movement that Jesus started is not what motivated Him.
What moved me to begin rethinking my missional motives came from a fresh reading of the familiar story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet in John 13.
Focusing on the Why and What, instead of the How
I had always focused on “how” Jesus modeled for His disciples what it looks like to love others. I had always focused on the act of washing feet. What I had never asked, which the Apostle John addresses, is why Jesus served the way He did and what freed Him to do so.
This is when I noticed John 13:3, where the Apostle John actually records what was going on in the mind and heart of Jesus the very moment before He moved to the action of humbly serving those around Him with the basin and the towel.
Look what the Apostle John notes: Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet…(John 13:3-5)
Serving from a place of Security
Did you see it? Verse 3 states that Jesus was confident of three things:
1) He had come from the Father
2) He was returning to the Father
3) The Father had put all things into His hands.
In essence, Jesus knew His past was secure, His future was secure and that He had everything He needed in the moment. This security motivated and freed Him to extravagantly love and serve others as He lived on mission with the Father. It was from the overflow of the certainty of the Father’s love that moved Him to see that there were dirty feet that needed to be washed.
Too often I have stepped into mission, not out of the overflow of my heart, but instead with a need to receive something from the ones I was serving or those observing around me. Whether it be wounds from the past, seeking significance or security in my future or secretly hoping for some accolades or affirmations in the moment, too often my motives have actually been driven by the need to fill a need in my own soul.
The hard thing about having such motives couched in Christian mission is that it is often difficult for others to even see it and call it out of us. I’m finding that such a revelation can come from reflection and listening to our hearts before, during and after engagement in mission.
I believe much of the burnout, moral failure, cynicism, workaholism, bulldozing, leadership manipulation and many other dysfunctions we find in our hearts often flows from the fact that, as followers of Christ, we’ve not become secure in our past, present or future. We step into mission with Jesus hoping that the mission itself will fill the void we feel or gain the security and significance we long for.
Jesus operated out of a completely different centering point. His missional motives were driven from a heart that was overflowing with the love, acceptance and security of the Father’s love, leaving Jesus free to serve and needing nothing in return.
May the EFCA be full of youth workers who are free to live on mission with Jesus out of the overflow of the Father’s love that has redeemed and healed our past, secured our future, and, through the grace of the Spirit, given us everything we need in the missional moments we find ourselves in through this fall season.
Post a Comment
Comments for this post have been disabled.
2 Comments
Curtis McGill at October 12th, 2010 6:06pm
Good insights. A sense of security in Christ, if I understand you correctly, is so valuable. It keeps us from being neutered in our effectiveness (fears) and it calls our motivations into check.
Thank you!
Tim Olson at October 12th, 2010 12:10pm
Great post. I too recently noticed the reason behind Jesus' washing of the Disciples' feet. I appreciate your honest insight of it. It challenges me. Thanks for writing on here. God is using you!