A colleague and I attended a conference this week made up of registrars and admissions personnel from all of Idaho’s colleges and universities. I’ve been to several of these, and they are always interesting (no, really) and often fun (stop laughing!), because sometimes a registrar’s just gotta registrar. It’s an environment where the Bible College guy can talk to the State University guy and the Community College guy and the Big LDS University guy (the school is big, not necessarily the guy) and there is understanding and friendship and mutual respect all the way around. Because, as different as we and our schools may be, nobody understands admissions people as well as other admissions people and nobody registrars quite like another registrar.

That doesn’t mean the differences won’t awkwardly pop up, of course. During a breakout discussion on core values, my colleague and I were huddled with a Community College guy wrestling over the question “what motivates you?” together.  And, unsurprisingly for a Bible College guy, God is central to how I answer that question. As a rule I’m not pushy or obnoxious about belief, but before us was a serious question and answering it seriously meant answering it honestly.  Serving people, equipping people, empowering people, treating people with respect and dignity…why are these core values for me personally and professionally? Because God loves me and I’m grateful. My candor may have discomfited Community College guy; who knows why, but somehow we were never in a breakout group with him again.

Blahgger’s Block

The Friday Blahg’s title, “The K Is Not Silent,” has been unintentionally ironic these last several months. I have managed to write three times since last summer, twice in consecutive weeks over Christmas Break. When I started this thing I never believed I could keep up a once-a-week pace, but I didn’t intend to have such long dry spells either.

So what has happened? Several things, none tragic, little of it even unusual. It comes down to this: I need three things to help me write. First: Inspiration. I need something I think is worthwhile to write about. Second: Energy. Writing well takes some mental and emotional horsepower. Third: Confidence. I need to believe I can effectively communicate an idea that others may find worthwhile and beneficial. The problem is that I have rarely had all three of these in my arsenal at the same time over the past year. Often I have barely had even one of them.

Inspiration comes and goes, but a limiting factor is I’m not interested in picking fights and provoking arguments. I’m not going to waste time venting spleen into the digital ether and telling everybody how they’re doing it wrong. I want to encourage through storytelling about everyday life and the lessons I’m learning along the way. I have a few stories that are overdue to be told, but maybe not as many as I’d originally hoped I would. It probably comes down to needing to get out more.

I wish I could say Energy is in abundant supply, and I have my manic bursts of mad productivity, but in truth I have been a pretty tired dude for awhile. No sympathy please; a lot of this is my own fault for taking on too much and resting (by which I mean, in every sense of the word, “Sabbath”) less than I should. I’m working on it, and I’m getting better. But my priorities are serving my wife, serving my kids, serving my students, in all the various forms that service may take…honestly, blahgging is pretty low on my priority list. More than once in the last year, I have drop-kicked Inspiration because I was pretty sure the artificial pressure of cranking out something for the Friday Blahg would maim or kill me.

But the most significant deficit I’ve had has been one of Confidence. It’s not that I doubt my ability as a writer or the value of what I write. I’m a good writer; I know I can improve and want to get better, but I also know I’m not bad. It’s not that I think my ideas aren’t worthwhile. I’m a good observer, and I often see and find significance in what many people overlook. My lack of confidence comes down to me not trusting my own motivations for blahgging.

The Tyranny of Ulterior Motives

In the past year I’ve been trying (occasionally with success) to talk less and listen more. Among the voices I’ve been listening to has been Timothy Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyerian Church in New York City. What started as curiosity about what a theological conservative has to say that so many New Yorkers want to listen to has helped bring clarity and definition to some of the mangled or unformed thoughts rolling around like loose cannons in my head.

The most transformative insight I’ve gained from Keller in the past few months is just how corrosive fear and pride can be in my walk with God. It is far too easy to let either fear or pride be my motivation to resist sin: I am afraid of God’s punishment, or I don’t want to be thought less of because of some tawdry failing. In the process I seem to overlook the fact that fear and pride are the very motivating factors that lead me to separate myself from God – that is, to sin – in the first place, because both in their own subtle ways focus my attention on self rather than my Savior. Ultimately love – for Jesus, because He is beautiful, not merely a means of benefit – is the only worthwhile motivation.

This realization has been liberating in some ways, but (because overthinking things is my spiritual gift, along with losing my glasses on my own face) it has been paralyzing in others. Because as far as the Friday Blahg is concerned, I’ve been caught in a weird tension between fear and pride. Said more plainly: I’m afraid of pride.

There are a thousand bad reasons to put yourself out there, and I’m pretty sure I’m vulnerable to most of them. For me it would be all too easy for blahgging to be an exercise in seeking significance, hoping for the attaboys and the pageviews and the likes. It makes me sick how deep-seated that craving is in me, and I desperately do not want to feed it. So, because I’m afraid Pride is too much of my motivation to write – or that I will be perceived as prideful – Fear motivates me not to write.

Is that not totally weird? Oh, wretched man that I am; who shall free me from this dizzying cycle of overanalytical self-doubt?

Getting Motivated

That’s a rhetorical question of course, and – of course – it is also the answer to my quandary. The Love Motivation has always been the elusive missing key and the indispensable anchor for my confidence. When Love motivates, Fear and Pride dissipate. They have to. Because there is simply no room left for these poor substitutes when love for Christ motivates what I do or do not do. If my motivation is right I need not fear pride for, as C. S. Lewis eloquently reminds me, “humility is not thinking less of ourself but thinking of ourself less.”

So, that’s where I’ve been and where I’m at, at it has helped me to do more than just write today. I’ve been trying to deliberately consider and cultivate this reckless, unpredictable motivation, and I pray it makes me humbly courageous and courageously humble. I hope that makes at least a little sense, and I hope it encourages you wherever you are at.