As I recall, one of Soren Kierkegaard’s masterful stories is that of a magnificent team of horses, purchased by a wealthy landowner, who greatly admired and coddled the animals. Shortly after acquiring the team, he harnessed them to his fine, ornate carriage and drove through the countryside to show them off. He was disappointed with the performance. The horses were docile, uninterested, and seemed tired during the journey. In despair the owner called in the former owner from whom the horses had been purchased. The previous owner asked for time to work with the team and returned to his home with the horses. After some days he came back with the team. The old driver held the reins and the new owner exulted in the experience of the ride. Heads were high, steps were energetic, and the team was put through advanced paces in the presence of the new owner. Observing and feeling his team move regally down the road, he felt mingled pride and consternation. Returning to the great house, he expressed his wonder to the former owner as to why the horses did so poorly at his direction but now so well with the former owner. The driver’s simple response was: You drove the horses the way the horses wanted to be driven. I drove them the way I wanted them driven.
And that is the way of it. We, human as we are, are ambivalent about ourselves. We want to and don’t want to, at the same time. (That’s for another Page.) Without parents and other authority figures, don’t-want-to often wins. We need considerable motivation – whether forced, persuaded, or inspired. The best coaches, we are told, are those who inspire and motivate. Their duty is to get players to do what both the coaches and nearly all players, as well as the fans, want players to do. Many coaches, in the tradition of Knute Rockne or Vince Lombardi, saw themselves as motivators as surely as they saw themselves as tacticians of the sport they coached. UCLA students who played basketball for John Wooden speak first of the man and his impact on their lives for good before they review the thrills of old games and championships. Little wonder that effective former coaches are popular as speakers on motivation and goal orientation. They are popular speakers at business conferences, annual meetings, and school convocations that may have no current relationship with the sport that took so much of their lives. They live to act.
We are independent souls, resisting the urgings of others – our parents, pastors, teachers, mentors, supervisors, and friends – even the urgings of our inner voices. The excuses are weak. We may even dig to find the flaws and things we don‘t like in those mentors, to mask the sound counsel we hear. We hide in the stuff of society. There is a motivator in the wings of our lives. He influences to guide us in all life. For him to succeed with us, we need to have a willingness to be obedient to the known will of God; to generate industry; to seek what is wisest; and, to rely on him to drive the team of our lives. He is the Lord who offers assistance, and, in seeking him, we learn application. We know this has mystery in it, but even divine mystery owns useful truth.
We are going to go beyond self when we learn the secrets of obedience to demands of vision. The Lord may carry us for a piece, but he prefers that we walk and work with him in partnership.
A partner has the right to feel that as he gives proper attention to the affairs of mutual interest, so the sharing partner ought to give similar dedication to the corporate interest. This is especially so since the partnership is most beneficial to the natural member than to the supernatural. We find this in the identity pattern of Jesus, the teacher, with his disciples – and us. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020