My wife teaches teachers at a university.  For close to 30 years she has been passionate about teaching.  She currently works with teachers in training – she loves it.  She has a burden to help student teachers become the best teachers they can be.

In light of my wife’s passion for teaching, we have watched a number of movies about teachers and teaching over the years.  One of the movies we have watched a number of times is called “Freedom Writers”.  It’s the true story of teacher Erin Gruwell who passionately and tirelessly worked with “throw away” teens in an inner city school to help them achieve far more than they, or anyone else in their lives, ever thought they could.  Her unorthodox tactics and techniques put her at odds with some in the system, but the change she facilitated in the lives of her students won her critical acclaim through the best-selling book “The Freedom Writers Diary”.

At one point in the movie she is at dinner with her upper middle class father who can’t really understand why his highly educated daughter with the world at her doorstep is so passionate about working in an impoverished school with delinquent youth.  After listening to her enthusiastically describe what her work entails and how much she loves working with these teens, even in the midst of the pressures, stresses and opposition, he said something to her that has stuck with me ever since:

“You have been blessed with a burden.”

Wow.  Blessed with a burden.  So what is that?

A burden is different than a passion.  A passion can be selfish – it does not need to be about the well-being of others.  A burden however, is about others.  It involves sacrifice.  It is costly in some measure.  It can be inconvenient and uncomfortable, but you are compelled to do it.  You are compelled to give of yourself for the benefit of others.  In some respects you cannot stop yourself from engaging.

There are two kinds of motivation:  intrinsic and extrinsic.  Intrinsic comes from within.  Extrinsic comes from outside.  More money, pleasure, comfort, position, advancement, promotion, etc – these are all extrinsic motivators.  In many different ways we are extrinsically motivated.

Intrinsic motivation, however, is something that resides within you.  Some refer to it as “fire in your belly”.  A burden is definitely intrinsically motivated.  Sure, there may be some extrinsic benefits, but even if there weren’t any you would still press on.

I have often, throughout the years, admired my wife’s undaunted focus on education and teaching.  I have looked at my wide and varied career path and questioned why I wasn’t more like my wife.  Do you ever do that?  Do you compare yourself to others who seem so motivated and so focused and ask why you can’t be more like that?  (And then typically get a little bummed out about it.)  We can’t do that.  We must walk wholeheartedly on the path we are on, even if it may seem like a detour sometimes.

I think any burden we end up carrying does not suddenly fall on us out of the heavens.  The burden grows as we begin to engage in a need.  As we begin to step out of ourselves to somehow, some way, give to others we begin to acquire the burden beyond ourselves.  It’s in the place of denying ourselves for the benefit of others that we discover a greater strength, passion and joy.  This can be found with our families, with our staff, in our communities – with anyone to whom we can make a positive contribution.

So, what burden are you blessed with?  Or, perhaps more accurately, what burden are you willing to be blessed with?  And, what are you willing to do about?  What needs are in your sphere of influence and authority that you can step into?

We can all be blessed with a burden as we look beyond our own needs to see how we can leverage our resources to help others.  It’s in this place of serving others that we discover what a blessing a burden can truly be.