This is a Sanskrit word meaning “do your duty with faith in God, without attachment to the fruit of the action.” I got this from “Christian Existential Psychology” by John G. Finch. One of my professors first introduced me to the work of Dr. Finch about a year ago. This concept has stuck with me and is what I try to use to evaluate my motives. Have I arrived…absolutely not but what has happened is I have become more observant of my need to please and be liked and intentionally evaluate why I do something. I want to have good fruit in my life and ultimately I want my life to be good fruit in God’s eyes, not acceptance I know I have that from Him but that my actions overall brought glory to Him for no other reason than that because I consistently and intentionally examined my motives. I don’t want to end up on a rat race of external praise and acknowledgement but genuinely doing and being as God calls me to be for no other reason than He called me. And if acknowledgment and praise come so be it but my worth and value is ultimately grounded in God and when the things I do bring Him glory.
One reason I have recently been thinking about this is in my parenting class we talked about the pitfalls of praise. Praising children is dangerous. It teaches them to find value and worth in what others think. A better route is to foster encouragement. Encouragement communicates a can do spirit. Now there is not no place for praise but it should always be preceeded by encouragement. Encouragement first, such as, noticing the hard work and effort a child put into a task, noticing their use of color in a art project, asking them what they think about their project or work, noticing they seemed to enjoy the process etc. Ususally giving praise is not needed after that but it becomes icing.
