Motives: “Why Do I Do the Things I Do?" by Edward T. Welch

How do people change?  How do we go from being stuck in familiar patterns of sin and struggling to follow God to living obediently and joyfully in Christ?  If it were as simple as choosing not to sin, most of us would have no trouble living the Christian life.  The truth is people are complex.  Sometimes our own behaviors can seem baffling to us; and the key to a changed life seems elusive.  At the root, each of us must grapple with the question: why do I do the things I do?

That very question lies at the heart of so many of the little booklets put out by the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (CCEF) in their series Resources for Changing Lives.  These booklets seek to get down to the heart level of our behaviors.  Covering topics like stress, priorities, anger, depression, guilt, loneliness, and sexual sin, these counselors seek to lead us to understand the spiritual dimension to the problems of modern life.  To be clear, the spiritual dimension is part of the issue, our behaviors can be sparked by our body chemistry, past events, or current environment.  Yet, uncovering the spiritual causes is what these booklets do best.

Ed Welch’s Motives is probably the best introduction to this collection.  Welch’s profound thesis is that if our motives don’t change, we won’t change.  Underneath the surface of our behaviors are desires, heart longings that control our lives.

X-ray questions like: Why do I want what I do?  What do I really want? If I don’t have ___ I am miserable, help lead us to uncover these controlling desires.  There are pretty common motivations: Pleasure, Freedom, Intimacy, Respect, Control, Success, and the list goes on.  Notice that many of these are good things that God has hard-wired us to want, yet when they are put in place of God life seems meaningless.

Welch writes that “idols are the way we try to satisfy our heart’s desires.”  We use money, alcohol, work or even people to feed those cravings.  Until those loves are replaced by a desire to love God and live for him alone, we will continue to wrestle with the actions and emotions that dominate our lives.

Start with this book.  Use it as a guide to evaluating your life.  It is a wonderful tool for reflecting deeply about our lives and a great gateway to the other equally helpful and accessible writings.

-Kevin Nelson