Hard Work
I know that some people think that taking the path that God leads them on should be easy and effortless. It seems that one of the things that indicates that you are moving in the direction of your God given abilities is that it’s easier to do what you are good at than to do what you don’t have much ability to do. Even if you are moving in the direction of your abilities that make it easier for you to do a given task that you are good at, that doesn’t mean that doing what you are good at will always be easy.
Don’t Be Fooled By Your Talent
Some people believe that God given ability negates the need to work at something in order to excel at it. This may be true to a certain extent if you are comparing yourself to people with average ability, but beyond that, you’ll just be above average instead of excellent. When I was in elementary school, I was better than average at sports. I thought I was extremely talented because I was one of the top athletes out of about thirty boys in my grade.
When I got to Middle School, the amount of boys in my grade tripled. I found out that I was not highly talented, I was only better than average as there were a lot of boys who had more ability than I had. When I got to High School, the number of talented athletes increased even more, and when we played against the best athletes from other schools, I no longer had my elementary school illusions of being extremely talented when I compared myself to a smaller number of boys.
If you seem to excel among a limited population, don’t let it fool you into thinking that you are extremely talented when you are merely above average. Even if you have exceptional talent, you will need to work hard if you are going to progress, because the more you progress, the more you will be grouped with other talented people, and the only way to stand out among other talented people is to work hard.
Even Talented People Must Work Hard
Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Itzhak Perlman, Nadia Comanice Michael Angelo, are all examples of people with mind blowing talent that is rarely seen, but every one of these people worked hours per day on developing the talent they had. All of them may have been way better than average without working at what they were good at, but they wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good as they were after hours of hard work per day for several years. Even if you have enormous talent that is extremely rare, working hard to develop that talent is still essential if you want to really stand out.
Hard work at anything requires discipline. It means being focused on improvement to the point where you will spend time on developing yourself almost every day, if not every day. Hoping that God simply blesses you with enough talent to succeed without much effort on your part will severely limit your achievements. God’s blessing to help you to succeed doesn’t just come in the form of talent and ability, it also comes in the form of giving you time and an opportunity to improve yourself. If you are waiting for his blessing to come up on you and hoping to wake up one day with way more ability to excel than you ever had before, you may be waiting forever and eventually come to the conclusion that it was never God’s will for you to excel.
Talent Plus Hard Work in the Bible
An example of phenomenal ability that still had to be developed with hard work can be seen in the book of Daniel with Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel. According to Daniel 1:4-5, they were selected to enter the king’s service because he king was looking for young men who showed aptitude for every kind of learning. They were to be well informed and quick to understand in order to be qualified to serve in the king’s palace. In other words, these were men of exceptionally high ability. Even so, they needed a lot of preparation and hard work before entering into the king’s service; not just a few days, weeks, or months, of preparation, but three years of preparation.
God also had a part in the development of these men. In Daniel 1:17, the Bible says, “To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds.” God obviously gave them an impartation of ability through his Spirit to enable them to learn and excel.
The combination of God given ability plus hard work resulted in excellence among others who were considered excellent. Daniel 1:20 tells us, “In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom.” As you can see, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were not just excellent when compared to a small group of average people. They were the best of the best and way ahead of the rest of the best.
Hidden Treasure to Open Treasure
God has given each one of us a talent or ability. In its undeveloped form it’s a hidden treasure. As it’s developed more and more, the treasure becomes more evident, but it takes discipline. Proverbs extols the virtue of diligence in chapter 10:4 where it says, “Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.” Chapter 13:4 says, “A sluggard’s appetite is never filled, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.” Hard work leads to success.
Big Talent or Small Talent, Put it to Work
What if you feel like I often feel, which is that God has gifted others with substantial ability, while my God given abilities are small by comparison. There is no denying that some people have mega-talent with lots of abilities, and other people seem to be lacking in the ability category. Even the things that they are best at amount to being average in terms of ability. Not everyone is a Daniel, or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who turns out to be ten times better than best of the rest. Should people with low ability even bother to develop what they have? God gives us an answer in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30.
The parable of the talents discusses the concept of being faithful to use what you have. In this illustration that Jesus gives, a talent actually refers to a bag of gold or a sum of money, but it can be used figuratively to represent an ability as well. In this parable, a master gave one servant five talents, a second servant received two talents, and the third servant received one talent.
The Neglected Talent
The first two servants were able to put their money to work and double it. The third buried his talent (or his money) and never did anything with it. The first two servants were commended by their master and rewarded with more. The third was reprimanded by the master and sent away to be punished for neglecting to increase what he was given. He believed that the master would require more of him than he could give with his little talent, even if he were to double it as the other two did.
Notice in the parable that when the man with five talents doubled his talents, he was able to give ten talents to his master as compared to the man who doubled his two talents into four talents. Even though the first servant gave over twice as much back to his master, the master told both of them, “Well done good and faithful servant.” Both men were told the same thing for being faithful with what they had, even though the first one gave a greater sum back to the master.
The servant who had only one talent was afraid that if he doubled it to two talents, it would still be horribly lacking in comparison with the other two servants. He then decided that increasing what he had would be so insignificant, that it didn’t matter, so he did nothing. But God does care what you do with that which he has given us and he wants us to use it, not waste it.
Don’t Waste your Treasures
Have you ever seen a nice building but it’s vacant and it’s just sitting there unused? Perhaps you have known someone who bought a magnificent boat but they never seemed to have time to use it, or there is a person who has more than one car and one of them just sits in the garage. You see these situations and think to yourself, Oh, what I could do if I had that building, boat, or car. I would put it to use. Someone put a lot of time and expertise into making those thing things and they were excited about the things that could be done with what they made, but all of that work never amounted to anything. Instead, it never got used and just went to waste.
Great Value
If someone wanted your eyeball and offered you one million dollars for it, would it be worth it to give them your eyeball for the money? What about both of them? Would you give up a leg or an arm if someone paid you enough? Probably not. This shows that the ability to see or the ability to walk and run is priceless, because not having those abilities would severely limit what you can do. Even if you didn’t have the best legs, you wouldn’t want to lose the ones you have. They are of great value.
You also have other abilities that are of great value, and the only one who can truly rob you of using them is yourself. When God made us, he knew the potential that he created us with, and he intentionally gave us the abilities he wanted us to have in order to bless us and bless the world. But how often do those abilities go to waste when they could have been developed? They are priceless treasures, but they must be developed through preparation and hard work before they are uncovered.
Positive or Negative Motivation
Assuming that people are given sufficient time, why is it that some are motivated to use that time to improve themselves while others are not? No one accomplishes anything without motivation, and motivation either comes from inner desire, or reward, or from wanting to avoid consequences. Motivation to accomplish something can either be positive, or it can be negative. However, only positive motivation adds to the quality of life while going through the process of accomplishing things. Negative motivation can help a person be productive and accomplish things, but it diminishes the quality of life during the process of accomplishing things.
Positive Motivation
Let’s focus on positive motivation first. Thomas Edison worked hard as a scientist and inventor. One of the reasons he worked so hard is because he had positive motivation. He once said, “I never worked a day in my life. It was all fun.” John Maxwell who has authored over 70 books and trained multitudes of leaders has also said the same thing. These are examples of men who accomplished great things and experienced joy in the process of doing so. Let me clarify, they don’t just enjoy it when something is finally accomplished, they enjoy all of the process that leads up to those accomplishments. This is positive motivation. When they finally get something done, they look back on the work with good memories and they look forward to working again.
The Drain of Negative Motivation
Negative motivation may also move people to get things accomplished. A person can be motivated out of anger, malice, frustration, anxiety, worry, or fear. These motivations can help a person get a lot done, but hate every moment of the process of accomplishing things. This kind of motivation drains the joy right out of a person, and it often drains those around them as well. When they finally get something done they are glad it’s over and they don’t look forward to working again.
Since motivation is necessary in order to accomplish anything, how is it that a person becomes positively motivated? People who are motivated in a positive manner often say that positive motivation can be learned and negative motivation can be unlearned. It starts with the way a person chooses to think and the perspective they have towards life, and it also starts by understanding that positive motivation is often a choice.
Steps to Take for Positive Motivation
What are some of the steps that you can take in order to start living out of positive motivation? I’ll list some steps that may help:
- Do what you love.
- Love God more than anything because it’s something that you can do all the time and then you’ll always be doing what you love.
- Have a worthy cause that you can pursue.
- Focus on any improvements that you can see in yourself, in others, in your work, or in your life.
- See challenges as opportunities instead of inconveniences and hardships.
- Understand that failure is part of the process that brings you closer to success; if you are willing to learn from it.
- Have a positive sense of humor about failure that helps you overcome it.
- Rehearse your blessings not your problems.
- Find other positive people and be positive along with them.
- Know that not only will your work be rewarded in heaven if you do it as unto the Lord, but a positive attitude will be rewarded in heaven as well.
- Do what you do out of love for others.
Start your day by thinking about these things and make a deliberate effort to put it into practice throughout the day. Look back at the end of the day and find the good in the things that you did and the things you experienced and be thankful.
Make it a Habit
These positive things are not something that you think about once in order to permanently cure you of a lack of motivation or negative motivation for the rest of your life. A positive attitude that leads to motivation is something that takes practice until it becomes a habit. If the positive habit becomes broken by negative circumstances that overwhelm your thinking, or you are constantly being surrounded with other negative people that begin to affect your perspective in a negative way, then you will need to take steps to get the habit of having a positive attitude back.
Biblical Advice for Staying Positive
The Bible gives us simple but effective advice in regard to how stay positive. Being positive is an important element if you want to stay motivated. Positive people tend to find it easier to stay motivated, and negative people often find it hard to be motivated. God knows this and urges us through scripture to stay positive. Some of the scriptures that instruct us to do this are:
2 Thessalonians 5:16-18
“Be joyful always, pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
Colossians 3:15-17
“….and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing plasms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
James 1:2-4
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Ephesians 5:16-20
“…be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Romans 5:3-4
”Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character, and character hope.”
2 Corinthians 4:17
“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”
Romans 8:28
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
You can see from these verses that we as Christians may face negative circumstances, yet God wants us to have a positive perspective in the midst of the difficulties that we experience. Paul was the one who wrote most of the verses listed. He faced dire circumstances that would cause most of us to surrender to negativity, but Paul insisted on staying positive.
In the end, if everything else fails in life, God won’t and eternal blessings are guaranteed if we place our faith in God. Sometimes life demands that we take our eyes off circumstances and place them on God and eternal treasures. Both Jesus and his disciples stayed motivated to spread the gospel and the Kingdom of God even when they faced death. They knew how to stay motivated by focusing on positive things regardless of the circumstances.
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