Why does God need us to do things and give us so many commandments? The issue is that we need to have the correct narrative, which is the feeling, meaning, significance, which makes up our motivation for doing something. Intellectually, God is an infinite being, so how can or what we do have significance in His eyes, and if we’re not significant, then why does what we do matter (Psalms 8:3-4, Job 35:5-8)? Emotionally, what drives most of what we do is how it makes us feel. God giving us a bunch of commands is inconvenient, so what motivates us to want to take on a demanding or inconvenient responsibility or task?
The most common form of motivation is an extrinsic reward or punishment. For example, our job is inconvenient, but if we do it, then we will get a paycheck even though the reward is not intrinsically connected with what we are doing. A better form of motivation is something where the very act of doing it is an intrinsic benefit to us, such as brushing our teeth. Then there is a deeper motivation where we do something that is inconvenient to us in order to benefit someone else in order to gain relationship, which is very valuable to us, and which is also intrinsic because of the bonding that is created when we do something for someone. The most powerful motivator is when we do something because it is ideally important and the right thing to do, which inspires us whenever we hear a story of someone dedicating themselves to doing something that was inconvenient with their time or money because it was the right thing to do.
So the moment that we have motivation to do something, we will readily do it, so the issue is the narrative around that inconvenience, and this is true around God’s commandments. If a command is just inconvenient without any narrative, then obedience to it is a pain in the neck. If we have a why to live, then we can bear almost any how, so we need to have a why. When we have a different narrative about why we are doing something, then we feel differently about it, and when we feel differently about it, then we are motivated to do it.
We see these motivations play out in Bible, where God promises blessing if we obey or curses is we disobey, is not in itself a sufficient motivation. If we ask someone to do something that is meaningless even if there is a reward for doing it, then it is like torturing them, which is why people quit jobs that are meaningless. All of God’s commandments either conveys an admirable idea or rejects a repugnant idea, either endows a positive character trait, or cautions against a negative trait, so there is an intrinsic benefit to them. When we give instructions to our children, we are molding their character or cultivating values that are for their own good even though we aren’t telling them that we are doing, so this is a deeper narrative for why God gave us commands, where we can trust Him to give instructions that are for our own good (Deuteronomy 6:24, 10:12-13).
However, while this helps us, there is still the issue of how it is significant to God. When we good deeds in obedience to God we are creating a relationship with Him. In order to have a relationship there needs to be vulnerability because we will never have a relationship with someone that we don’t need anything from. If a husband wants to provide everything and refuses to let his wife help him, then that shuts down the relationship. God does not inherently need anything, but He makes Himself need so that we can have a relationship. When someone important asks us to do something, then it creates a connection, such as when a professional athlete asks a kid to get them a drink. Even though they could get it themselves, when they ask the kid to get it for them, they are making the kid’s day, and that is how we should feel when God asks us to do something. God is creating a need so that we can connect with Him by obeying Him and He gives us so many commandments because He wants to give us many opportunities to connect with Him at all times and in every aspect of our lives.
So the narrative changes from a good deed being God ordering us to do something to being a connection, from something that we have to do, to something that we get to do, from needing to do a good deed so that God will love us to God loves us so He instructed us to do good deeds. Furthermore, whenever we obey God’s instructions we are fixing the world through testifying to the world that there is a Creator and reconciling the world to Him, which is an idealism that is the deepest form of motivation.
