A Question Of Motive

“’I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past; and I can say with honesty that my resolve was fruitful of some good. You know how earnestly, in the past months of the last year, I labored to relieve suffering; you know that much was done for others…[But as] I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect…at the very moment of that vain-glorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most dreadful shuddering…I looked down…I was once more Edward Hyde.’

This is a deadly turn of events. For the first time Jekyll becomes Hyde involuntarily, without the potion, and this is the beginning of the end. Unable to control his transformations any longer, Jekyll kills himself. Stevenson’s insight here is, I think, profound. Why would Jekyll become Hyde without the potion? Like so many people, Jekyll knows he’s a sinner, so he tries desperately to cover his sin with great piles of good works. Yet his efforts do not actually shrivel his pride and self-righteousness, they only aggrevate it. They lead him to superiority, self-righteousness, pride and suddenly---look! Jekyll becomes Hyde, not in spite of his goodness, but because of his goodness.”1

So the struggle I’m having, as you discerned from what was not written in my letter, is that I value man’s altruism; our actual instances of really helping each other. However, as a believer, I understand that there is a distinction between man’s acts and God’s acts through men. What Mr. Keller describes in the preceding passage is especially relevant to believers, and particularly to myself, even though secular people either cannot or will not understand the dilemma we face as God’s servants. In the world’s eyes all acts of relief to our fellow men are acts of goodness. Maybe they are. Maybe the good that is accomplished is done for God’s purposes regardless of the motivation. As believers though we are keen to discern the motivation behind our own acts of charity, and assure ourselves that we are acting in God’s will rather than our own. Frankly this fear of self-aggrandizement, I believe, has paralyzed much of American Christianity to the point where secular people of high moral character can justifiably condemn us for our own inaction; our “lazy cruelty”. I also believe that this pervasive ‘laziness’ reveals atrophy in our individual personal relationships with God. There is suffering in the world. Sin has assured that. However, just as sin grieves the Father, suffering must as well being the child of sin. If we were in prayer with God, oneness with His Spirit, I doubt that so many of us would remain idle.

This is where I am today. My relationship with God has grown these last few years to the point where I feel like I am beginning to see His Spirit at work in the world around me. I am beginning to see that there are great opportunities for God’s glory to become manifest in the world around us, and I’m even beginning to feel like He’s inviting me to follow His Spirit to where the work is being done. But I’m not sure. One night this summer while waiting for sleep, I was struck by the fact that Evergreen has fifteen acres of weeds and grass. Then I thought of the subsidized housing project that I pass in Yale every time I go to Stillwater. It occurred to me that there may be a child living there who might not have enough to eat. “Why are we growing weeds and not food?” I asked myself. Then that same week a friend of an internet friend knows a guy at the Food Bank found out that things are looking pretty bleak over there. I immediately thought of fifteen acres. I approached Jerry Voris with the idea, and he told me of his brother’s church in Missouri that does this very same thing. He mentioned that it takes many volunteers, but he did remind me that the Evergreen has a tractor. About this time, I thought that I should broach this topic with Michael and see if it would even be a possibility. Then, to my horror, I realized that maybe I should ask God where He was at on the topic first!

I’ve been praying for two months now for clarity on the issue and each time I’m met with more concerns. “How are you going to find time? What if nobody wants to volunteer? Where will the money for equipment, seed, fertilizer, herbicide, and irrigation come from? How will your wife feel about another commitment? What if nothing grows?” And on and on. Intermingled with this are images of my standing as leader at the head of the people that it would take to make it happen along with the musing of being interviewed by the Tulsa World. These images and questions are at once terrifying and tantalizing and seem to be the creation of my own Mr. Hyde. The Devil first gives me a litany of why I can’t do it then pricks my ego and dares me to push ahead. “You can do it”, he says. “You’ll be great!” no mention of God’s greatness. But when I prayerfully imagine the enterprise as God’s own, He gives me no sense of contradiction. Maybe He’s forcing me to trouble shoot all aspects of the operation in my own mind to ensure that this talent he’s entrusting to me doesn’t get buried. I just don’t know yet.

Steve Jobs’ death culled out of me my desire to be helpful to my fellow man. Jesus practically implores, and maybe even demands me to live this life of service. I’m just really having a hard time getting myself out of the way. You know?

1Timothy Keller, The Reason For God (Dutton, 2008), Chapter 11 “Religion And The Gospel”, p. 176.

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