day 632: Motives

"He is the one who examines the motives of our heart."

A fair amount of time is spent trying to figure out what the motives are behind an action or words spoken. Think for a moment about the times we have had to stop and question someones motives and then plan or build a strategy around addressing those motives, which sometimes can be thought of as questionable. In the business press we are constantly reading stories asking about the motives of Boards and CEOs as they make decisions on pay, acquisition, investment, divestment, partnering, etc. Everyone questions motives and too seldom in the workplace are the motives made transparent enough. How much better would our workplaces be if we could count on the motives being pure and never having to worry about the hidden agenda or false motives being used? Alas, it is not to be and reality is that we learn to manage around motive considerations and thus, we waste a lot of time. The best we can do is to be sure that we never play the game and instead ensure that we speak out loud about what our motives are then stay true to them. Those who do this will attract others who do the same and little by little each of us can make it a little better.

To be as pure as we should be we must also always be examining what our own true motives are. While we may say one thing, if we keep asking ourselves, "why" until we run out of answers then we can find true motives and be consistent to those. It is not always easy to get to the bottom of our true, really true, motives because we have to be honest with ourselves and that is not always easy as we don't always like the truth. It is in these times that we have to not only trust in ourselves but also place our trust in God to ensure that we know what those true motives are. God will be true in His evaluation and provide us with the lens that we need to really see into ourselves. We just need to ask Him and then listen. We may not like what we hear, but that's okay. Today, ask Him to reveal what the motives of our hearts are and then lean on Him to help you bring those motives in line with your actions and words. God is giving us this gift of transparency, let's allow Him to do His work on us so that we can be pure and consistent in our work.

Reference: 1 Thessalonians 2:4 (New Living Testament)