Why do we do what we do? The heart. The mind. The will. Mix them together and out comes the reason. Follow your heart? Not unless you disengage your mind. Make the most logical choice as you disengage your emotions? And what if your heart says don't and your mind says don't, but you still do? Or your mind says do and your heart says do, but then you don't?
The heart, the mind, and the will are not three separate railroad tracks that we run on. They make up the track itself--two rails and the crossties between them. My dad was a railroader for much of his life, and he knew that if two rails and the crossties got disjointed or snow-covered in any way that a train wreck would soon ensue. My Beloved's dad was also a railroader, and he had to go out many times to help get the railroad cars back onto the rails. And sometimes the train wrecks were disastrous. And so it happens to us, that when the heart, the mind, and the will get disconnected, our lives can be a train wreck.
Our decisions and choices come from the blending and balancing of the three aspects of the soul. We all probably know people who are driven by their heart's emotions, who seem not to think much of anything through as to its consequences. Like the song a few years back crooned, how can it be wrong when it feels so right? Likewise, we probably know people who set aside their emotional inclinations and focus on the logic of a decision, sometimes studying every aspect up one side and down the other so as to make the near perfect choice, but often making a decision that they feel really bad about simply because it's the logical thing to do. And then there are those who look straight ahead at the end of the tunnel and move forward by sheer will power. They have no emotional drive behind them and don't think about the path they're on. The goal is the determining factor. Just get to it.
Throughout the Scriptures, God gives us indications that the heart, the mind, and the will all come into play. They are often used interchangeably, and not one is given more importance than the other. They work in concert with one another. We are created in God's image. God gave us emotions because He has emotions. He gave us intellect because He has intellect. He gave us a will so we would be free to make decisions. When He decides in His mind to intervene on our behalf, He does it with lovingkindness. And Jesus came to do the Father's will. He set His mind to the cross and wept in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Why do we do what we do? Motivations can be difficult to discern, for ourselves and for others. We need to be careful not to attribute motivations that may themselves be quite complex. A motivation can be a little from the heart, a whole lot of mind-boggling reasoning, and then some sheer will power. Or it can be mostly emotion, not much thinking behind it, and maybe not any will power moving it along. We're sometimes complicated cases ourselves. And this is good to keep in mind when we want to help family and friends work through their own complicated cases. It takes a lot of discernment to hear what the heart, the mind, and the will are playing in concert.
As I'm writing this, I'm thinking how I'm culpable myself of attributing motivations to people in the grocery store who are not wearing face masks during this Covid-19 situation, while I am wearing one and have made masks for others. I feel myself wanting to say to these unmasked people, "I care about you, don't you care about me?" And I answer for them--and you can pretty well guess what I'm thinking. But then again, maybe they do care, but ..... We all have our own motivations for what we do or what we don't do.
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