What’s Their Motive?

 

“For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”

1Samuel 16:7b

 

Other people do things many times every day that directly affect you and me. Decisions are made that have ramifications for our present and our future that we have no influence in how they are made or in when they are made. But, if you’re like me, we often think we know why they are made.

Recently my husband has had to point out to me that I am assigning motive to other people’s actions. In my own mind I am questioning why the Lord has allowed some difficult circumstances in our lives. I have thought that I could see what man was doing.

The truth is that I can see what man is doing but what I cannot see is why they are doing it. As I have been studying 1 Samuel I am getting a real lesson on the fact that it doesn’t really matter why man does anything. What would be really nice to know and what does become clear after a time is what God is doing in the same set of circumstances.

In 1 Samuel 8 Israel demands that God give them a king. In 1 Samuel 9 we learn that a man named Kish lost his donkeys and sent his son Saul to go and look for them. This tall and handsome son travels quite a distance before looking for Samuel, a prophet, to inquire of him what has happened to the donkeys. He arrives to find that Samuel is ready to entertain him at a banquet having known he was coming. On his way out of town the next day Samuel anoints him as the first king of Israel. Then he tells him the donkeys have been found and now his father is wondering where he is.

Up to the point of the anointing Saul had no idea why he had to chase donkeys that had been found, why there was a dinner where he was obviously the guest of honor, or why there was a bed already prepared for him to sleep in. God was at work in the background making the necessary arrangements and preparing Saul to be King of Israel. Saul and his father just thought he was chasing down some lost donkeys.

So, I look at my own set of circumstances and realize that though I want to think I know the motives in the actions of others – I do not, and it’s sin for me to assign them. I now see, because someone has pointed it out, that I have no idea what their motives are. But, God is all over it. He knows exactly what is happening and why. Even better He will use it for our good. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28. Praise the Lord I don’t have to know the “whys” of a situation to have Him keep His promises regarding it.

In these circumstances that God has given me I believe I am being tested. Lest I be accused of assigning motive to God I believe I can know this because in God’s word I can see that difficult circumstances are either a test or a consequence. If there is no evidence that the decisions that have been difficult for me had anything to do with my behavior but they affect me, that’s a test. If they were a result of my own sin – that would be a consequence.

The point I want to make is that the Lord has been so faithful to me in the past that I know He will keep His promise in Romans 8 to work this out for my good. The rest of the test is for me to wait on His timing to see it all come together and not to continue to think I know the minds of men or sin against them in my response. Only God knows their hearts and has any idea why these things are happening.

Like Saul, I can’t see the end of the story. Unlike Saul, I have the Word of God and the story of Saul’s anointing to point me to a God who is constantly at work in the details of life – even when I don’t see Him or understand why He is doing or allowing something that looks so wrong to me. 

In Psalm 139:23 David prays, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!” This reminds me that God does know the heart and the thoughts of all. I don’t have to decide why someone is acting as they are – He already knows and if I needed to know my God would reveal it to me. As long as He doesn’t I must learn to be content knowing He does and to remember that He knows my heart and my thoughts, too. 

“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.” Proverbs 19:21