When it comes to my motives for doing things, I am quite clueless, when it comes right down to it.
I can think of all sorts of motives, but I can’t really tell you which ones were more and which were less instrumental in making any given decision.
For example, if you pray for your grandpa’s life, there are many reasons for doing so. Some pure love, and some with varying degrees of selfishness.
First of all, I think we all can agree that in and of itself, praying for another’s life to be extended is not a sin, except maybe in some very odd situations that totally don’t apply here I’m sure. For example, if I pray that my enemy may have a long life, that sounds very noble, and it’s a good thing to do. Now, if my motive was that I wanted him to live long so he could suffer for something I think he’s done, then my prayer is clearly motivated by my desire to punish, when that should be God’s job. But I’m assuming it is nothing like that.
Now, I’ll give you an example from my life how I came to grips with guilt over my motives, actually very recently.
There are many things that I find attractive about this forum. One thing I love to do is to jump into the middle of heated arguments, and trying to help break the logjam or help stop them from going around in circles. I did things like that years ago for my job, and I love doing it. As far as my motives for jumping into arguments, or for posting here at all, there are several I can think of:
1a) I want to be a peacemaker, so that I can help bring Jesus’s peace to the world.
1b) I want to think of myself and for other people to think of me as a peacemaker, because I like it when people think I’m good, especially when it comes to religious things.
2a) I want to improve my ability to communicate with people.
2b) I want to improve my ability to get people to see things my way.
3b) I have a need to share stories that tell me how much God has loved me.
3b) I have a desire to make people think I am blessed, or that I have been loved by God in ways they maybe haven’t.
4b) I want to gain social skills so that I may better share my views on Truth with people without offending them or otherwise causing them to become defensive and fail to hear them.
4b) I want to gain social skills so that I may better work with other people in a way that makes them want to pay me with money or other material wealth, or with their admiration.
5a) I like to help people get over their fears and anxieties. I was there, hated it, and if I can help pull others out the way God and good friends and family and good spiritual direction seemed to, then I’m using the life God gave me to advance His cause.
5b) I like to help people get over their fears and anxieties. I want people to think about me whenever they think about peace and happiness, so they can be grateful to me.
I can think of a hundred more possible motives, but I think we have a working set of examples. For each, I tried to make the -a ones be selfless reasons, and the -b ones be selfish reasons.
So now that I have listed out all the reasons I can think of for doing something that I do (and almost compulsively so) then the question becomes, which one(s) actually caused my behavior, thought, or decision, and does that make me selfless or selfish.
Here comes the Good News: you don’t have to know your exact motives, but God does and He will take that “need to judge yourself” from you, at the asking. I cannot honestly tell you whether it is the -a reasons or the -b reasons I post on this forum. I have zero doubt that is is some mixture of them, but it is too complicated to know which, if any, took the leading role.
Meanwhile, since I see that it is having positive effects, at least in my imagination, I see that no matter my motives I’m hopefully doing good rather than harm.
But I’m human, not God. Therefore, it is inevitable that my motives include both types of motives.
For example, maybe I want to do something I know my dad would like me to do. Just as I’m getting started, my dad sees me across the room and says, “I want you to dump this trash right now, before you go out, or you will be grounded.” All of a sudden it isn’t about doing a nice thing for dad. It’s about avoiding punishment. Or is it? How can we know which? Well, as far as I see it, it’s still the right thing to do, to take the trash out for whatever the motive is. So my pride and ego are a bit hurt or confused, because we didn’t get the pleasure of a random act of Good Deed. But I should not feel guilty for taking the trash out, because it was the right thing to do regardless of why.
Is this making any sense? I’m not sure I’m paving a road that is easily followed. I’ll go ahead and post this, and if I think of something more or better or if I’m asked, I’ll be baaaack.
Lord, I pray that the OP may find peace and comfort in Your loving touch. I ask You to help her hear the voice of Your Holy Spirit when making decisions, and truly recognize your mercy and experience Your healing so that she may be delivered from this pain, if and when it is Your will. Through Jesus Christ, Amen.
Alan
