What is my motivation for obedience?

My 5th grade students and I are reading Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. I have never read this book prior to this reading with my students. We are enjoying it and learning a lot from it.

The book starts with a tribe of people living on an island far from other civilization. A ship full of men comes to shore one day. These men want to hunt seal on this island. The captain of the ship makes a deal with the chief of the tribe as to how the hunted seals will be shared.

When the men have hunted and gathered sufficient seals for significant profit, they begin loading the ship to leave. Although a certain amount of seals and other goods were promised, they shortchange the island tribe. This offense results in a bloody fight between the islanders and the seaman. Many die from each group. One of the dead is the chief of the tribe.

The seaman leave.

Although numerous members of the tribe remain, the chores must be redivided amongst those that are left. The women are asked to begin doing tasks that the men have always done. The women are able to gather enough food for the entire winter in a far shorter amount of time than the previous larger group of men ever did. The men of the tribe are shamed and even angered by this change of traditional roles. The man who has taken the role of chief determines that there is no way to maintain the traditions and way of life of the people under current circumstances and the tribe would be best served by seeking life elsewhere. He leaves in a canoe promising to send a ship to rescue the people.

Time passes and a ship does come. The people of the tribe determine that this ship must be the rescue ship sent by their chief. They board canoes and paddle out to this ship.

The member of the tribe whose perspective this story is told from is a 12 year old girl--the daughter of the previous chief. She has a younger brother half her age who wants desperately to bring his spear with him as they leave the island. She instructs him that he doesn't have time to retrieve it. Among the chaos of the moment, she is informed by a tribe leader that her brother has left on an earlier canoe and is on the ship.

When she arrives on the ship, she realizes that her brother is no where to be found. When she looks back to the island, she sees him, spear in hand, on the shore. Without hesitation, she dives into the ocean and swims back to her brother.

Unfortunately, a storm had been churning and the captain of the ship had no choice but to set sail leaving Karana and her brother alone on the island.

Ramo, the brother, recognizes his duty as son of the chief to take on the role as patriarch of this island. Although Karana questions whether her younger brother is old enough and strong enough for this responsibility, she does not question his duty and rite to take this role. She supports him despite her desire to be the one to protect him.

In his first courageous venture, he is mauled to death by a pack of wild dogs on the island.

Karana is left alone.

Karana, knowing only the traditions of her people, faces an internal struggle as to what her new role will be. One of the traditions of her people is that women are not to make weapons for hunting, yet she has the need to hunt for food for survival and the desire of revenge to kill off the dogs that killed her brother. Even though she is the only one on the island, she struggles with the rationalization to feed the need for hunting and defense which would contradict the traditions of her people.

As we reached this point in the story, I stopped to discuss and applaud her integrity. I outlined her character and suggested that this quality be admired.

As we continued to read, we find that Karana has exhausted and all other options and begins creating weapons out of necessity. As she is whittling sticks and chipping away at stones, she admits fear of what the possible consequences might be for disobeying the culture and moral code of her people. She wonders if she'll be drowned by giant waves or attacked by the pack of dogs or other fearful consequences.

At that moment, I began to question her motivation for obedience and began to evaluate my own obedience.

Was she desirous to keep with the traditions of her people because of her want to do right and uphold the teachings of her people? Or did she obey out of fear of the consequences for her actions?

I began evaluating my own actions.

There are temptations and sins that I struggle with on a regular basis. Despite the fact that I want to kick the habits, I have been caught in the moment of several occasions and have chosen to fall into temptation. Even though I have fallen short on a number of occasions, I often feel as though the sin goes unpunished. Nothing drastic occurs in my life, at least that I recognize, that I can correlate as a direct consequence for my actions. Sometimes I wish that the world would tumble down upon me in that instant so that I would have a reason to never again participate in the actions that I know to be wrong.

But is fear of consequence the ideal motivation for avoiding sin?

I'll answer that, because I can.

No.

The most righteous motivation for obedience is love. It is the love of God and the desire to do as He commands.

As I began evaluating my personal motivations for obedience, I recognized that in many instances love of God and desire to right is not my reason for living righteously. However, I did recognize many instances, many choices, where that was my number one motivation. I realized that in the instances where my motivations are pure and sincere, my blessings are greater, my knowledge is increased. The sins that seem to repeat and hold me back the most are the instances where my motivations to abstain are revolved around fear.

Fear and faith cannot dwell in the same place. If I am to have faith to overcome and to endure, then I need to replace the motivation of fear of consequence with the motivation of keeping the commandments because of my love for God.

When I love God, I will love myself. It is when I am filled with that love that sin will be less desirable and turning away from temptation, no matter previous actions, will be much easier.