He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. Friedrich Nietszsche
It's the why that motivates who you are, what you do, and how you do it.
We each have a bent, a perspective, that melds from our core and folds in a few or a plethora of characteristics that makes only one you.
Because I witnessed an accident at an early age, it impacted me enough to want to help those who were hurting. I became a nurse. (Pic below was practicing on the family kitty)
That was an influence of circumstance.
Even earlier than that, I was known as the 'helper' in my family and even in nursery school (that should give you a clue to my age), teachers would tell my mom they should pay me because I helped the other kids and was a natural comforter. This is my natural bent.
During Preparing for Marriage class (my hubby and I facilitated), we gave a 'how well do you know your partner' questionnaire. As an example, we asked if you had $20 extra to spend, what would you do? The partner had to answer for you.....hit the nail on the head, I would take someone out for coffee, a one on one. I want to know you. People person. It's how I relate to the world.
Why? What's my why? What's your why?
In Jerome Wagner's book Nine Lenses on the World The Enneagram Perspective, he asks a compelling question to know your core motivation. If you had one year to live, where would you put your time and energy?
Have you ever really looked at your life from the perspective of who you are? How well do you know yourself?
It's a personal map of how you think, feel, do, and all the external things that occur to and around you.
Our Lord looks at our heart. Do you know what's in your own heart? What makes you, be you?
Proverbs 27:19 Just as no two faces are exactly alike, so every heart is different.
There are no wrong or right answers. It's what makes a uniquely you.
1 Samuel 16:7 For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.
Psalm 78:71-72 God prepared David and took this gentle shepherd-king
and presented him before the people
as the one who would love and care for them
with integrity, a pure heart, and the anointing
to lead Israel, his holy inheritance.
God even knows where you live and the time period you are born, now, was meant to be.
Acts 17:26 From one man, Adam, he made every man and woman and every race of humanity, and he spread us over all the earth. He sets the boundaries of people and nations, determining their appointed times in history.
Take care of you. Pay attention to what's in you, not just what you do, how you do it, but why you do it and who you are.
Proverbs 4:23 So above all, guard the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are. Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being, for from there flows the wellspring of life.
Most importantly, who you are springs from whose you are.
John 1:12 But those who embraced him and took hold of his name he gave authority to become the children of God!
Galatians 2:20 My old identity has been co-crucified with Christ and no longer lives. And now the essence of this new life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives his life through me—we live in union as one! My new life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God who loves me so much that he gave himself for me, dispensing his life into mine!
Go ahead, whose you are, makes a great who you are.
KTWL