Sometimes I wonder. I’m sure you do as well.  Why do I do this?  Well, that question may have been accurate at first when I started doing this, but now it would be more accurate to ask, “Why do I continue doing this?”  

“This” could be your work. In my case, it’s my counseling practice, our in-home Goldendoodle breeding business, and volunteer opportunities that involve counseling.  “This” could be your marriage.  Next December 2023, we will have been married 33 years.  That’s a lot of love but it’s also a lot of hard work.  “This” could be your children.  We  have three biological children, two of whom are married and raising families, one who is about to graduate from nursing school and is already adulting working as an extern. He is lacking passing his state board exam to be official. Only the last is still on the “payroll” (but he’s practically self-sufficient) so in many ways we are STILL doing this.  We also have three preteen and teenage girls adopted from foster care.  While we love them dearly and consider them just as much our children as our biological children, they came with trauma “baggage” that makes life with them very challenging most days.  I imagine that regardless of our children’s ages or status in life, we will always be doing this with them.  

Now that we have an idea of “this”, let’s go back to the distinction I made earlier. What’s the difference in asking “Why do I do this?” versus “Why do I continue doing this?”  I believe it is all about having a vision that is based on truth.  And that truth, I believe, is that we are created for “good works.”  We are created to make everything around us better in some way by living our lives to positively impact others.  In work, it’s to help bring healing. In my marriage, it’s to be supportive of my wife so she is a better person in all that she does because of what I do for her. With my children, it’s to raise them to be difference makers in this world no matter their age.  And “do” versus “continue doing” is the difference between starting something and maintaining or maybe even completing something despite trial and tribulation.  

So why do I “continue doing this?”  In a word, Jesus. In another word that is also Jesus, Eternity.  I believe God’s Word, the Bible, teaches that what we do on this earth in this life will be carried over (the things we do FOR Jesus) into Eternity and affect and follow us forever. So it’s vitally important we make what we are “still doing” vitally important. 

Why do YOU do what you do (start) and why do YOU continue doing what you are doing?  Crucial questions for the present that will not only affect your now but also your forever future. May God direct your paths and give you hope for a future!  

Contact me if you’d like to know more about Jesus and why HE is the reason I continue doing what I’m doing.  John 3:16