Rachel Hauck

Best-selling author and award winning author Rachel Hauck lives in central Florida with her husband and loving pets. She earned a B.A. degree in Journalism from Ohio State University and spent seventeen years in the corporate software world before leaving to write full time. Rachel loves to teach and mentor writers.

She is a Book Therapist at www.MyBookTherapy.com, a daily craft blog and community for writers. In the past, Rachel is the president of American Christian Fiction Writers and now servers on the Advisor Board. Visit her blog and web site at www.rachelhauck.com.


Dodging Raindrops

The Power of Reward

Why do we do the things we do? Why have kids? Why get up and go to school, get a college education, choose a career, work hard at your job, at your relationships, at life?


Reward.


We live life through a series of efforts and rewards. We learned it at an early age. Good behavior begot rewards from our parents or teachers. Good grades earned us the honor roll, perhaps scholarships or trophies. A job well done, warranted a raise. A well-written book garnered fans, awards, the favor of our publishers.


The reward of selflessness or giving put us in amiable relationships. The payoff for loving someone was being loved in return.


We rarely continue to work hard at a job or in a relationship, to keep giving, if we receive nothing in return. It’s why socialism cannot produce greatness. The human heart engages only so long when it is not rewarded.


When I worked in the corporate world, my boss thought the mere privilege of having a job should motivate me all through my fifty-hour work week. She was known to stick an employee’s review, and the raise, in her desk drawer for months, if not the entire review year.


She was rewarded and honored, but she didn’t want anyone else to receive such. Many employees had worked together for years, and we liked one another, our jobs, and our customers, so we found a good deal of reward in showing up for work each day, but we never did the job for her because she was the brick wall to our financial rewards.


And after a few years, attitudes began to sour. No surprise.


A novelist’s career is difficult. A writer goes days and months without an outside word of encouragement. The more books released, the more reader feedback, but in the early days, the response is nominal.


It’s hard to write your heart out only to have reviewers casually breeze through your book and write a ho-hum review. I’ve read reviews where the reviewer made a claim about the story that wasn’t true. Had he paid attention to the story, he’d have written something different.


Disappointment is the handmaiden of reward. We all face and deal with it in the pursuit of reward. Any parent of a difficult or challenged child understands laboring without reward, but knowing that one day the fruit will come.


This week I’ve been wrestling with how to motivate myself while waiting for the reward. After a while, the motivation to keep going becomes a trickle instead of a stream. And I hope to find myself in a river.


There comes a time when the drive, motivation, hope, and financial resources just run dry. We all need reward to fill us back up.


I listened to an audio excerpt from a book called “Running to Win” by Kris Vallotton. He recounts how he motivated his employees by making them a more integral part of the sales process. He paid the commission weekly rather than monthly. Immediately, he saw an increase in productivity.


So this past week, as I meditated on reward, I began to talk to God. “Hey, You brought me here, now what?”


This verse came to mind: Genesis 15:1. God told Abraham, “I am your exceedingly great reward” (NKJV).


At the end of it all, whether I reach the heights of success or the depths of failure, God alone is my reward. He is my friend. He loves me. He has plans for my welfare not calamity, to give me a future and a hope. If I need justice, He is the one I petition.


At one time I told Jesus I’d sit with Him on the back row as long as He remained with me. I can’t now say, “It’s time to move,” when He’s not moving.


So what do I do with disappointment and the wondering about reward? I do what Mary did in Luke 10. I sit at His feet. Jesus said, “[this] one thing . . . will not be taken from her” (v. 42 NKJV)


He is my reward.


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