Tiny Devotional for Monday, 08-16-2021

 A great good morning to all my friends and neighbors in Internet Land! And to family members who have dropped by, the kitchen belongs to God.

All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight,
But the Lord weighs the motives.
Proverbs 16:2 NASB




Proverbs tells us it’s a really bad idea to use a fool to do ANYTHING. So, what am I to do when I examine my ways? I have assigned the job to a fool; namely, myself.

One of the first bits of insight I ever had was discovering I could pervert Reason to justify doing anything I wanted to do. My entry into substance abuse was cloaked in a thin veneer of conducting a scientific experiment: “how much can I drink before I can’t walk?”

While years of drinking and drugging gave me plenty of opportunities to lie to myself about how clean my ways were, my fabrications extended far beyond intoxication. Occasionally, I had brief moments of clarity, such as the time I realized I WANTED to buy a VW Beetle, and that I was setting up my purchase criteria to reach that conclusion. That was, perhaps, the first time I TRULY realized I couldn’t trust my own motives. 

However, “Don’t do anything, because you can’t trust your own motives” is NOT, repeat NOT a workable plan. It’s the paralysis of analysis,  in a different form.

Here is (roughly) my conclusion: my motives are none of my business. 

The verse says “The LORD weighs the motives,” not “the dude learns how to weigh the motives.”   God doesn’t need me to do His job. Instead, what I TRY to do is: the next right thing. Then I shut up, and listen, and adapt as directed.

Peace be on your household.

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