Good Intentions

John Hain at Pixabay

We’ve all heard the phrase, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1091–1153) is credited with the original phrase, “Hell is full of good intentions, or desires.” In 1650 John Ray recited it as a proverb. “Hell is paved with good intentions.”

St. Paul writes in Romans 7:19, “For the good which I will, I do not; but the evil which I will not, that I do.”

Sounds like good intentions to me.

We are human. We try. We fail.

God understands our failings, so won’t he also understand our good intentions? There is no shame in trying and failing, only in not trying at all. Our effort counts.

There's the difference  

Good intentions never acted upon pave the way to hell. Whereas good intentions to put into action, even if unsuccessful, lead us toward heaven. 

As Joseph T. Sullivan wrote in my morning devotion in, Good Morning, Lord, “Let me be a doer of little things, the small actions that make someone else’s day a little better, putting someone before myself.”

Those good intentions are not hard to put into actions, requiring only a few minutes of my time, and yet can mean so much more to the recipient. With practice, I might even become the doer of bigger things.

Thank you, St. Paul for your honesty. It encourages the rest of us to keep running the race with our hearts and minds focused on God and eternity rather than on our failings.

Becoming a Child Again

Photo by Rudy Anderson at Pixabay

Jesus tells us in Matthew 18:3 that “unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” I can’t remember the last time I was so overwhelmed with joy I jumped around and squealed with delight like a child.

I thought that meant to have faith and trust like a child, but what if he also means to have the same joy?

Since my vow this last year to be happy,  I don't spend time anxiously trying to figure out how to solve all the problems in my life or the world. Instead, I offer the intentions in prayer every morning, give the worry to him, and listen for his urging in what step I should take next, whether it be more prayer or some kind of action. He never fails to indicate in one way or the other what He wants me to do.

Without that kind of pressure, I do enjoy more things, anticipating the pleasant rather than the unpleasant, and can lose myself in an activity without feeling anxious about a current problem. Come to think of it, depending entirely on Him and not myself is very much like becoming a child again.

With this freedom I have been more productive with writing and painting. Productive but still a bit critical. That too has a purpose, as long as I don’t dwell on the imperfections and instead work to improve. Same with faith and trust. It takes practice and effort to get better at it.

Children do that. They keep working at the things they love, eternally optimistic they can achieve anything. They also see the wonder and the beauty of things many adults take for granted. My art has kept me from becoming complacent in that regard, always looking for subjects for future paintings, but life has beaten down the unbridled joy of a child at Christmas.

Will I ever gain that back? Probably not, but I can keep working on my vow to be happy regardless of my circumstances, one hour, one day, one step at a time.

As my heroine in my current novel says, “We may not know what the future holds for us. All we can see is today, an hour at a time — stepping-stones leading us toward the fulfillment of God’s plan for our lives, but regardless of where our path leads, what sorrows we will endure, we can be sure the path will also be filled with great joy.”

May it be child like in its exuberance, unfiltered, and fully expressed.