On Motives

Got to thinking about why we do the things we do. I mean, in my head I usually have a pretty good idea of the things that drive my actions. But I also know that I'm not always perfectly honest when I convey those things to other people. Case in point:

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After Change-Over Day, a day in which all the people who were on the IVCF exec the previous year get together with all the people who will be on it the next year, it was suggested that a group of us should all go out for supper and watch a movie afterward. It was a movie I did want to see, and the people were all friends of mine. I really wanted to go. But there was a problem.

That evening, back in Altona, it was Prison Ministry Awareness Night. I'm on the Prison Ministries Worship Team, and we were playing in my church at the time I wanted to be eating supper and watching a movie. Therein lay my dilemma. To that point I had never, on the day I was to be doing something, changed my mind in a way that affected others. On that day, I did.

I phoned the church and left a message telling them that Change-Over Day had taken longer than expected (true) and that I was feeling really tired (true) and that I didn't really trust myself to be driving home under those conditions (true). But that wasn't really the reason I wasn't coming home. In fact, with nothing going on in the city, I probably would have risked it and tried to drive home (as stupid as that may have been).

I told the truth, and nothing but the truth, but certainly not the WHOLE truth...

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Sitting here and thinking about that made me realize something: I have no idea what the motive is behind what other people do. I might guess at it, I might even hear them articulate their motive to me, but I still don't know with certainty what that motive is. But, whatever they do, I can be sure they have a reasonably good explanation for doing it. Some people, however, have become extremely good at hiding their motives from others because they feel that if their motives got out, they would have a much more difficult time accomplishing what they want.

It's like when you're playing Settlers of Catan. If you need one brick to build a settlement on the space someone else is trying to get to, you don't say, "I'd like to trade for brick because with my road building card I'd be able to block you from playing there." No, you just put your offer on the table: "1 brick for 1 ore" and let the chips fall where they may.

The difference, is that as Christians in the "game" of life, we're all on the same team pushing toward a common goal. So why is it that we feel we have to hide our motives from others? Likely it's because we don't think our motives are entirely pure. Just remember (and I need to remember this too) that you can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never fool God. He looks through any facade we might set up and attacks a problem right at the root, and His motive is love.

So why don't we? It may be difficult, but I'm sure God makes it possible for our motive to be love as well, and then we wouldn't have to hide it from anyone. Life would be so much simpler if love was the only motive. I'd like to be able to trust that everyone else is acting in love, and I'd like everyone else to be able to trust that I am too.

Unless I'm playing Settlers...