by Helen Jesze 28th August 2026

Some people are past the worrying stage and have given in to resignation. What does
resignation mean? When somebody is in a state of resignation, he is passive, he has reached a dead-end street in life; he makes no progress, shows no growth and is in a state of depression. When he speaks he says something like this: ‘Things will never get any better.

It’s not worth trying. I’m not worth anything anyway. I will never achieve or amount to
anything. I’ve resigned myself to the situation. God cannot use me, etc., etc.’
There are many reasons why a person can get in this condition — disappointment, fear, bitterness, lack of opportunity to develop, boredom, unbelief, worry, sickness, depression, inferiority complex, and perhaps many other things. Not only can individuals reach this point but whole families and even a church.

Resignation is a negative condition and produces nothing positive. Most of us have lived perhaps for a while on ‘Resignation Avenue’ but some people have lived there for many years!

On this street everything is very still and lifeless. The houses look old and dark, paint is
flaking off the doors and the windows. The gardens are overgrown with weeds and there is little or only tasteless fruit on the fruit-trees. The people who live here live only in the memories of the past. In fact, they are not living, they are only vegetating.
But there is another street and it’s called ‘Motivation Boulevard’. Here the houses and
buildings are freshly painted and designed in many different ways, for their owners are
always open to new ideas. Many cars and lorries piled high with excellent wares are
making their way along the street. Stimulating conversation and discussions can be heard; there is music and laughter, and enthusiasm can be felt in the air.

The people are energetic and waste no time with worrying and regret. Instead they
discuss and consider how they can do things even better or avoid making the same mistakes again. The gardens of the houses are a sight to see, filled with the most beautiful flowers and vegetation, and the branches of the fruit-trees are bowed down beneath the weight of their marvellous fruit.

Life never dies out on ‘Motivation Boulevard’. This street runs in the direction of the
future. And what about us? What street are we living on? On which street would God
like us to live? That’s easy to see.

If worry and resignation cause us to think and act negatively, then they can never come from God. He is a God full of creativity, activity, variety, colour; a God of progress, of making anew, the God of a new beginning. Nature — his handiwork — is full of life, and this life pulsates on through every created being or thing in the universe. God has never worried, never given in to resignation, or he would have given up on us long ago.

How does motivation actually function? A person can be motivated to good or bad. Let’s consider being motivated to do something ‘good’. When God made Creation, he had an inner picture of every animal and every flower within himself. He saw the rose, heard the bird-song before it was even created. When he created Adam and Eve, they satisfied the desire or longing of his heart to have somebody who would voluntarily love and obey him.

This ‘seeing’ and ‘desiring’ inspired and motivated God to create these things. Motivation causes us to go into action to accomplish or express something. Even as God was motivated to create through this inner picture and inner desire, we too, can use this faculty of imagination of mind and spirit which he has passed on to us, to bring us out of worry and resignation, to victory and motivation.

Take off the ‘spectacles’ you have been wearing for so long. Through these spectacles you have only seen your limitations, your difficulties, your lack of ability and defeat. Let the Word of God bring a new picture of victory, a divine answer to your problem into your heart and before your spiritual eyes.

Use your imagination to paint pictures of God’s intervention rather than the devil’s
destruction. Receive a new vision from God. We need this for in Proverbs 29:18 we read:
‘Where there is no vision, the people perish or are destroyed, are in a state of
resignation.’ Begin to see yourself as God sees you through Jesus!
When God sent Jesus, he was motivated by our need. We could not save ourselves, and his love moved him to help us. These same three principles can work also in our lives to bring us to motivation, if we happen to be still living on ‘Resignation Avenue’. Let’s apply them to the situation we are in today.

The new vision
1. Perhaps in our Christian walk or in our service for Jesus we have experienced
disappointment or frustration. At first we were angry and wanted to hit back, but now we sit resigned and passive, our hands folded in our lap, in our corner of self-pity. We live and dream of past victories and the days when God was able to use us — but now?
God says to you: Stand up. Tell that inner man to rise up. Receive a new vision! God hasn’t finished with you yet! He has not cast you aside. When Elijah was laying under the juniper tree wishing he could die, God gave him a new assignment. He placed or spoke a new picture in Elijah’s heart. The Word of God will give us a new picture, a new vision.
As Moses lay on his face before God by the Red Sea and all the Children of Israel were crying out that Pharaoh and his army were going to kill them, God said to him: ‘Why are you crying unto me? … Get up! Lift up your rod and stretch it out over the sea, Moses.’
Receive a new vision in your heart — see the waves rolling back and making a way for you to go through. Throw away the old picture of despair and death.

2. Our next principle was the inward wish or burning desire. The desire or goal of sportsman or athlete to be No. 1 motivates him to put everything else on one side. He train and tortures his body until it obeys him and until his performance increases. The burning desire and the inner mental picture where he sees himself winning a gold medal at the Olympics motivates him to continually push forward and not give up until he has reached his goal.

What dreams and desires has God placed in your heart? Perhaps you have shut them away in a cupboard and hidden the key, because you think you can never accomplish the task; or out of disappointment because it has taken so long for your dream to become a reality. You are worried that you have missed God’s will for your life. Take these desires and dreams out of the cupboard again; put them under God’s searchlight. Let the Holy Spirit show you how you can work together with him, in order that these dreams become a reality.

3. The third reason for motivation was to see and fulfil a need. A child is drowning and a man jumps into the water to save it. We are motivated to help someone because we see their need. In other words, love and compassion move and drive us to do something to alleviate or put an end to the need. In 2 Cor.5 ;14 the Apostle Paul writes: ‘The love of Christ constrains us . . .’ (Bruns Translation: ‘The love of Christ is the essential driving force of our life. . .’).

To really come out of a state of resignation to motivation, we need fresh impulses, a fresh vision, but we also need faith, patience and determination. Motivation is more than enthusiasm. It is another dimension and power. Enthusiasm for a certain thing is good, it is infectious. Others will catch on and, to a certain degree, you may
be able to motivate yourself and them by your enthusiasm.

But motivation is much deeper than enthusiasm. When you are motivated with God’s
Word, quickened by his Spirit and walking in step with him, your motivation will not be
dependent on other people’s opinions. Enthusiasm does not last long if nobody else joins in. If nobody is interested, the whole thing fizzles out very soon. But God-given motivation will carry you through all the obstacles standing in your path. Enthusiasm may last as long as the circumstances are favourable, but will wane after a while, unless it has a more solid foundation.

Jesus’ ministry lasted for the brief period of approximately three years. The first year is known as ‘The Year of Inauguration’, where Jesus is doing his first miracles and starting to show himself to the world. The second year was ‘The Year of Popularity’ where the crowds flock around him, and many miracles and great things take place. The people want to make him King and it seems as though nothing can go wrong.
But the third year was ‘The year of Opposition’. Here miracles, much teaching and many interesting events are recorded, but the rumble of voices against Jesus makes itself heard, swelling louder until it breaks out into open betrayal and rejection. Jesus is crucified.

If we had been Jesus, during those first two years, it might have been possible for us to be carried along by the enthusiasm of the crowd and the popularity, as was the case with the disciples. They were swept along with the stream, puffed up with pride at being a disciple of this great Teacher, and riding on the balloon of enthusiasm.
But would it have been possible to go through the third year to suffer torture and death on mere ‘enthusiasm’? Impossible. It went far deeper — Jesus was motivated by the inner picture he had of a lost humanity and himself as the Lamb of God, taking away their sin.

He was motivated by a burning desire to reconcile us with God, and to do the Father’s Will. He was motivated by compassion and love and through seeing our need — the greatest producers of true motivation.
Later the disciples received true motivation and fleshly enthusiasm dropped off. After
they had been stripped of all sham, seen their cowardice and weakness during Jesus’
crucifixion and been brought face to face with what it really meant to be his disciple; after they had accepted his forgiveness, taken his power, the power of the Holy Spirit — instead of their own, then they went out to change the world, with a deep, unswerving motivation which nothing could turn aside.

After Calvary, they took up residence in ‘Resignation Avenue’ — all seemed lost. But
after the resurrection and the infilling of God’s Spirit, they moved, once and for all,
onto ‘Motivation Boulevard’. How about joining them, if you haven’t done so already?