Have you ever had the joy (!) of getting some new computer part, only to find that it doesn’t work because it ‘doesn’t have the right driver’? It has taken me a long time to understand the jargon, but apparently a ‘driver’ in this sense is a program that controls a device. Every device, whether it be a printer, disk drive, or keyboard, must have a driver program. Many drivers, such as the keyboard driver, come with the operating system. For other devices, you may need to load a new driver when you connect the device to your computer and if you don’t… you don’t get very far! It’s maddening to have a shiny new printer that just sits there looking at you (without printing anything) because it can’t communicate with your computer because of driver problems.
On Sunday, Garry preached (amongst other things) about what ‘drives’ us or motivates us as people. With coloured ovals that resembled the Venn diagrams I loathed at school (more maths, you see…!), he talked about 3 things that drive us to do the things we do:
1) what we want to do
2) what we have to do
3) what we ought to do
Now, if all those three drivers line up, we are happy and enjoy what we’re doing. But if what we have to do isn’t the same as what we want to do, there is conflict. And if what we want to do or what we have to do are not the same as what we ought to do, we’ve got as many problems as the printer that sits there inert.
So, if we’re feeling stalled, maybe it’s because the things that are driving us aren’t talking to each other. We have to bring those three motivating forces into alignment so that we can live whole, integrated lives.
Paul talked about this conflict in Romans 7. “What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise,” he writes. “I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.” (The Message)
You can feel his frustration and despair at the end of Romans 7: “Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?” But thankfully, he doesn’t end there. He goes on to say, “The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.”
God’s influence and help in our lives make all the difference, and, as Garry pointed out, there is no conflict within the Godhead. What God wants to do is exactly the same as what He has to do and what He ought to do. The unity of God gives us hope when we are wrestling with driver issues.
What we want to do, is the thing we have the most control over. When we want to do ‘our own thing’, we take responsibility for aligning everything else and have to cope with any misalignment issues. When we want to do what God wants us to do then the responsibility for alignment is His, and the TRUE ‘ought to’ and the TRUE ‘have to’ will align.
We will find there are ‘ought to’ and ‘have to’ set by other people and other systems. We should take note of these, but any conflict of interest should result in us following God’s agenda.
This could be a huge issue. Any more comments?
Peter and the other apostles dealt with the conflict of interest in Acts 5: “We must obey God rather than men!” How this is worked out in practice is indeed a huge issue!
I like the idea of God having the responsibility for alignment… but unfortunately I am all too prone to want to have control in my life, which inevitably leads to conflict, since I am actually NOT in ultimate control. Learning to surrender all control is the key issue here.
“I felt like I was spinning.
Didn’t know what was up from down.
I tried to fix what I had broken.
It was scattered all around.
It seems that every time I try walking by myself,
I end up on my face with nowhere else to go.
So I surrender all my ways.”
(Jeremy Camp, Giving You All Control)