Push? Or Pull?

J. Shelton
Aug 23, 2017 · 4 min read

Obligation is a lousy motivator.

Granted, it gets things done. And if getting things done is the only what’s most important, then maybe it’s enough. But if you obsess over the outcome you miss the process. If we skip the process over and over, we don’t grow. The motivation for completing a task or goal can have a significant impact on how you get it done.

If you mow your lawn because you have a group of your favorite people coming over later and you want for them to have a fantastic time, then even though the actual doing of the thing doesn’t change much, the process might be more enjoyable than say, if you’re trying to get it done before you get another nasty-gram from the homeowner’s association.

It can be tempting to move through life checking off boxes. Our days can easily disintegrate into a succession of to-do lists. If we’re lucky, maybe we have some vague sense at the end of the day that we did a decent job managing everything. Or maybe we just dropped too many of the spinning plates.

When the rest of life feels this way, our spirituality can fall into that same pattern effortlessly without our knowing it. We can “quiet time” with the best of ’em. Read for 10 minutes? Check. Prayed for stuff? Check. Maybe even journaled a little? Check. Hear me say that there are volumes to be said for discipline and consistency. But my question is this: If these practices are a regular part of your everyday, are they bringing you life? I don’t remember any scriptures about us enduring drudgery and enduring it more abundantly.

What I’d like to suggest is that there is another way.

Over the last few weeks and months, one word has emerged in my life as a key that unlocks much of the growth that I want desperately to experience:

Curiosity.

I can tell you without any exaggeration that it has been a game-changer. It has changed my relationships and my conversations. It has changed my goals. And it has changed my spiritual life.

Curiosity flips obligation on its ear as a motivating force because it is a pull toward ‘want to’ instead of a push toward ‘have to’. It is internal instead of external. If we do whatever “it” is, we do so not just willingly, but with enthusiasm.

Obligation at its root can often be traced back to a motivation of fear or pain avoidance. I need to do this, or else. Curiosity on the other hand is motivated by discovery or a desire for experience or knowledge among a ton other things.

Curiosity is far easier to sustain than obligation.

Almost 10 years ago, I drove out to Joshua Tree National Park by myself with a tent, a guitar, a camera, a journal, and a bible. There were 3 things that put that trip into motion.

I had recently heard a Sunday morning message about sabbath and it being the most neglected of the commandments.

My wife and I were expecting our first child and did not have any steady work on the horizon, so needless to say, I had some serious questions bouncing around my head.

The last one, though not as holy as the other two, may have been one of the strongest draws for me. Years earlier, I had seen a movie about the doors and at some point Jim Morrison is talking about “getting lost in the desert”. That painted a mental image for me that I could never shake.

My curiosity about that sensation or that experience was one of the major factors in putting me on that 3 hour road trip out to the middle of nowhere. Since then, the discipline of solitude has become a passion of mine and I’ve spent the years since then reading, learning, and guiding people through it. I wouldn’t have been able to put words around it then, but I think the fact that one of the most significant spiritual experiences of my life originated from curiosity instead of obligation is the reason I still seek it out today and want to keep learning more and more.

Maybe you aren’t a fan of tents and deserts and aloneness. That’s totally fair. What are you interested in? And where can you find Jesus in the middle of it? It doesn’t even have to be a spiritual discipline. We are capable of experiencing closeness to Jesus in all kinds of ways, even things that don’t sound incredibly spiritual. It could be at a museum. Or when you listen to bluegrass. Maybe you see God in numbers and in the incredible order of design. Maybe you feel closest to him lying in a hammock looking up into a canopy of trees. Maybe it’s when you’re handing out meals at the local homeless shelter.

In my experience, if you go looking to find him, he’s gonna show up somewhere. Am I saying we should abandon scripture and prayer? Nope. Not even a little. But if those things have become rote and ritual, you might benefit from setting them down for a time in order to come back to them later with fresh eyes. And in the meantime, Jesus is inviting you into moments with him as he speaks through the Spirit. And I believe that he has made you naturally curious in ways that will draw you to him with a renewed sense of passion and urgency. John Hambrick , a mentor of my mine, reminds me often that “God is infinite in every direction.” If we’re bored, It’s probably our own fault.

I believe strongly that God gives us our passions for a reason and not at all by mistake. I think that as we pursue them, we come alive in ways that please him, and as we burrow further into those things, whatever they are, we discover more of him.

So my challenge to you is this: tomorrow whenever it is that you have time set aside to experience God’s love and his presence, trying following your curiosity and look for him to show up there. You might experience lots of things, but I’m willing to bet that obligation won’t be among them.

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