“I will sing of steadfast love and justice; to you, O Lord, I will make music. I will ponder the way that is blameless. Oh when will you come to me? I will walk with integrity of heart within my house;” Psalm 101:1-2 ESV
Reflection: who are good intentions for?
Let’s say you step on the scale one morning, and a number is staring back at you that you don’t like. Even the mirror tells you, confirms that you have to lose some weight. But how? The changed you starts with a desire to weigh less. But just with this want to weigh less, your actual weight will not change. Next, if you now become intentional about your weight loss, something changes inside you. It is no longer just a want for a change, but you become determined, even to the point of being willing to sacrifice to achieve the less weight. You “intention”, your will drive you to make a diet plan, and even arrange your day to make room for exercise. But still there is no weight loss. So what is missing? You will only see weight loss results after taking action, to diet and exercise.
Our intentions can be very helpful to drive us forward, to achieve something difficult. They are like an internal engine. But they really achieve nothing without action, for ourselves or in the eyes of others. It is our actions that account for results. Say we back our car into a parked car in a parking lot and damage both cars, we can try to tell the other owner that it wasn’t our intention. But most likely that will not be good enough. We still have to take responsibility for our actions and pay for the damage. Don McMinn wrote “If I regularly offend people, though I think my intentions are pure, I need to analyze my actions and adjust my behavior. Self-awareness combined with a humble and contrite attitude will motivate me to change and do better. Intentions are the reasons behind what you do. Actions are the things that you actually do. Results are what happens as a result of actions. We are responsible for all three.”
So what are intentions then?
In a way, intentions are principles written on our hearts. Like a roadmap we want to live by. Psalm 101 is a beautiful example of such a roadmap. As we see in the focus verses today, David states “I will”, as a declaration, a commitment to what he stands for, which will guide his actions, “I will sing of steadfast love and justice; to you, O Lord, I will make music. I will ponder the way that is blameless. Oh when will you come to me? I will walk with integrity of heart within my house;” Psalm 101:1-2 ESV But in addition, David also declares what he “will not”, what opposes and will take action against. “A perverse heart shall be far from me; I will know nothing of evil. Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly I will destroy. Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not endure.” Psalm 101:4-5 ESV.
But, as we looked at, our intentions are only useful for ourselves, to help us take the right actions. And, without the right actions, we will not achieve our desired outcome. If we intend to do good, but go around hurt people, our good intentions don’t mean much to the people we hurt. But why are our actions sometimes not aligned with our good intentions? In the case of backing into a parked car, possibly from being careless. In the case of overeating when we are on a diet, most likely just plain weakness of the flesh. Again, it is only when we act according to our intentions we will achieve the desired outcome.
I suggest to read through psalm 101, to try to understand, write down all of David’s intentions, and think through what are your intentions? Are your actions aligned with your intentions?