“And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.” 1 Corinthians 8:2
Motives
One recent day, after speaking my mind to my husband, I found myself absolutely certain of his heart and motives. I reminded myself of “all the other times.” I was getting worked up over this incident, imagining all sorts of scenarios, having make-believe conversations with him where I was the clear winner of the fight. In my mind, my fist was raised in victory.
I felt so… so…empty and deceived and alone.
Truly, we can’t know anyone else’s heart or motives. We can only know our own (and we aren’t very good at that, either.) “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind…” (Jeremiah 17:9-10).
Even if someone tells us how they feel or what they think, it isn’t necessarily the whole truth, which is often known only to God—because they don’t know their mind any better than we know ours.
The only things we know with certainty are what we have personally seen and heard. (This is “testimony.”) We can’t know what other people think, and we can’t know their motives. If we think we can, we are wrong. And we don’t always properly interpret what we see and hear, either. People are complicated. In our humanness—and because God’s ways are unknowable to us—life is unpredictable.
I am praying that the Holy Spirit will put a check in my heart whenever I think I know what is humanly unknowable. I am praying against my deceptive “vain imagination” where somebody wins and somebody loses a hypothetical argument. I am praying for a grace response when I’m sure that someone’s motives are inferior to mine. I pray that I will still want to forgive the 49thtime.
I await the Lord’s revelation of truth in any given situation. If He doesn’t reveal it to me, then I don’t need to know it.
“Father, how we yearn to have Your heart of truth and grace beating within us. Help us to love as You love. Remind us not to imagine what someone else thinks or feels. Test our minds, that we may confess our sins and receive Your forgiveness by the blood of Your Son. Amen.”
Oh! The mind games… thank God for the revelations He gives us!
Amen, so true: if He doesn’t reveal truth, I don’t need to know
A devotion needed today. Thank you!
Amen!
When my “vain imaginations” were carrying me away, a wise and godly person told me to read over and over again, out loud, 2 Corinthians 10 around 3 or 4 on….about the weapons of our warfare,…tearing down strongholds, and taking thoughts captive. His Word works every time. I sometimes need to “do it again”!