When Good Deeds Have Hidden Motives

Reflections on Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest

By Donna Onstad Buys

This morning, I read “His Nature and Our Motives” by Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest. It caused me to stop and examine something I would rather not think about: my motives.

Have you ever stopped to consider why you do a good deed? Is it purely out of love and compassion, or is there sometimes something in it for you?

For six years, I belonged to a women's philanthropic organization that supported several worthwhile projects. We helped disadvantaged children gain access to better educational opportunities, assisted abused women, and supported people experiencing homelessness.

The organization brought together women with widely differing political and religious beliefs. Some were Christians who kept their faith largely to themselves. Others held strong progressive views that I found difficult to accept. Somehow, we managed to work together, for the most part, by keeping our opinions private and focusing on helping those less fortunate.

Each year, when it came time to renew my membership, I hesitated. But I always wrote the check.

Why?

Here is where my confession begins.

I was writing a book about my Christian faith, and I hoped my membership in the organization might eventually help me reach more readers. I had an ulterior motive.

When Adventures With God: How He Pursued Me When I Ran was published, I sent a short announcement to the organization's newsletter editor. I thought it might be appropriate to mention a member's literary achievement. I wasn't asking the organization to endorse my book, only to acknowledge its publication.

The response surprised me.

The newly elected president objected because the book was considered “religious.” I wondered whether a book about another faith tradition would have received the same response.

I was disappointed and hurt. I promptly resigned and requested a refund of the membership dues I had paid only days earlier.

Later, I learned that another Christian woman had resigned, partly because the organization had discontinued support for a tutoring project serving immigrant children after discovering that it was Christian-based.

Two other women contacted me to express their regrets and support. One disagreed with the decision, pointing out that I had requested only a neutral announcement, not an endorsement.

I also learned that some members had been told I wanted the organization to promote my book and display it in its thrift shop. That was not what I had requested.

But as I reflected on the experience, another question began to trouble me.

What had been my real motivation for remaining in the organization?

I genuinely believed in its charitable work. Yet I also hoped that my association with these women might help promote my book.

Was that selfish ambition? Or was it a sincere desire to reach more people with the message of God's grace?

Perhaps it was both.

My ultimate hope in writing Adventures With God was to encourage women who struggle with guilt, shame, and feelings of unworthiness to discover a closer relationship with God. I wanted my book to bring glory to Him.

But even a worthy goal can become entangled with personal ambition.

Ironically, my resignation may have generated more conversation about my book than a simple newsletter announcement ever would have.

Was God using this uncomfortable experience to accomplish something I couldn't have planned? Perhaps.

But the deeper lesson for me was not about whether my book received publicity. It was about examining my heart.

Oswald Chambers reminded me that God is concerned not only with what we do, but with why we do it.

I am still learning to distinguish between serving God and pursuing my own purposes in His name.

And perhaps that is a question worth asking ourselves every morning:

Am I doing this for God's glory—or my own?