What is my intention?

These days I have been reading the book of Job during my morning quiet time with God. Maybe some of you might have some idea about the book of Job. If not, let me give you a brief story of Job in the bible. The Holy Scripture says that Job was a righteous man. He was god fearing and wealthy in his time. So one day satan goes to the presence of God and tells him that it is because of God’s blessings that makes job follow Him and if he is to take it off from job, he will reject God. Eventually, after hearing satan's case, God allows satan to touch Job’s possessions but not his life. Soon, satan wrecks havoc in job’s life, everything that he owned is destroyed and even his own children are killed. Job has sores all over his body and he is in great pain. At this time seeing his plight three of Job’s friends reach out to comfort him.

In this meeting with Job, his friends criticize him saying that it is because of his disobedience that he is suffering. He is hailed with condemnation by his friends. If you would listen to what his friends had to say, you will find that they were saying the right things. But there was something wrong in what they were trying to do, their intention were not right! Bible tells us that job was a blameless person before everyone.

He didn’t go steal, kill or do any kind of harm to anyone. Sadly, his friends were trying to provoke him to think that it is because of job’s sins that tragedy had hit his home. A lesson that I learnt in my life in this scenario is “do I advise people with right intentions?” Why do I say what I say? What is the intention behind it? When I thought about it there have been instances in my life where I was saying the right thing with the wrong intentions!

Wrong intentions are poison within us, it stop us from growing. We might be saying the wisest thing in the whole world but if it is backed by wrong intention the whole point of saying it is gone! Just gone! When we try to create guilt inside a person through our advice or want to prove that the other person is totally wrong. The more bitter we get! And, sometimes we might loose the person. We as children of God are called to be wise with our words and intentions. Trust me, if we are to speak with genuine concern and love it will bring about a great difference in a person's life! Even when I write this let me tell you I'm also pushing myself to be more careful, a little more cautious when I speak. Scripture in the book of Proverbs 18:21 says that death and life is in the power of tongue! If we have such dynamite power in this small organ in our body let us be more careful.

Let me close this with this one real life story. Recently one of my friend, met with an accident and was taken to hospital.On reaching the hospital the doctor told her it is because of her negligence (when it was not the actual case) that accident had happened. She was then taken to a ward where she was shown other patients and the doctor said like this “you should consider lucky, only little (few wounds) has happened to you compared to them!”