Driven vs. Drawn
Drivenness is almost a badge of honor in our culture of busyness. Have you ever really reflected on the motivation for being driven? When I did, I was surprised what I found. Read on and see what wisdom has to say about this.
Gregg’s Reflection
For the first half century of my life I was driven. At work and at play, I felt an obligation to prove myself worthy. Throughout my business career and my EMBA journey, I lived with Imposter Syndrome. No success could assuage my belief I was not good enough. Sooner or later, people would find out.
Not only was I driven, I drove those around me. When I went to my first workshop with Robert Fritz after we sold the business, I realized I had been operating out of a worldview of obligation most of my life. I decided from then on, I would do what I did out of choice and not obligation. That changed the energy around everything I did.
Working with Fritz helped me see I wasn’t trying to prove myself to my long-dead father, but to God. “Is that how your religion works?” Fritz asked. I see now that my fear was to be judged not good enough (and be thrown into the outer darkness, I suppose). Once, as our plane came in for a landing, we hit a wind shear a hundred feet off the ground. As the plane tipped back and forth violently, I was sure we were going to be scattered across the runway. I realized I wasn’t ready to face God. I feared a God of judgment, and could not believe in the free gift of grace.
As I have moved into a deeper journey, I find a God of compassion, one to be loved, not feared. And, I find a God who never drives us, but draws us sweetly forward on the journey. We are free to pursue God and godly things, and free to choose not to. We see ample evidence of that all around us. So, read on and see what the saints and mystics tell us.
I find this illustration helpful in explaining the differences:
Scripture
Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—indeed only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:40-42
Ancient Writings
What is it then to be ‘drawn’ if not to be united in an intimate way to the object that captivates our heart? I ask Jesus to draw me into the flames of his love, to unite me so closely to him that he lives and acts in me.
St Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, p. 257
Modern Writings
Prayer is not a way of being busy with God instead of with people. In fact, it unmasks the illusion of busyness, usefulness, and indispensability. It is a way of being empty and useless in the presence of God and so of proclaiming our basic belief that all is grace and nothing is simply the result of hard work. Indeed, wasting time for God is an act of ministry, because it reminds us and our people that God is free to touch anyone regardless of our well-meant efforts.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devo, 5/13/22
How will you manage to step out of the everlasting busyness that curses our lives?
Dallas Willard, from the RENOVARE Bible notes on Paul, NT p. 328
If you are in a hurry you will find it difficult to walk with Christ. Difficult to be loving or kind. You will carry anger with you. Hurry comes form a sense of trying to do more than we can get done. That frustrates our will. I encourage people to live without hurry.
Dallas Willard
Unnatural, frantic, anxious work, work done under pressure of greed or fame or any other inordinate passion, cannot be dedicated to God, because God never wills such work directly. Let us not be blind to the distinction between sound, healthy work and unnatural toil.
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 19
How many there are who never even get as far as contemplation because they are attached to activities and enterprises that seem to be important. Blinded by their desires for ceaseless motion, for a constant sense of achievement, famished with a crude hunger for visible and tangible results, they work themselves into a state in which they cannot believe that they are pleasing God unless they are busy with a dozen jobs at the same time.
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 16
How many have smothered the first sparks of contemplation by piling wood on the fire before it is well lit. The stimulation of interior prayer so excites them that they launch out into ambitious projects for teaching and converting the whole world, when all God asks of them is to be quiet, and keep themselves at peace, attentive to the secret work He is beginning in our souls.
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 207