One of the things that was clear to me from a young age is that success, purpose, wealth and many other things in life respond to principles. I am a child of God and I enjoy a beautiful relationship with God. I pray daily and study the word regularly, but I know that if I am going to be successful, there are also certain principles I must follow.

This is the reason why success and wealth is not skewed in favor of Christians or other religious people simply because of the presence or absence of their religion. God does not work with idle, lazy or careless mindset, so even if you pray 10 times a day, fast 100 days and you do not get some principles right, at best, your results will be sub-optimal.

You do not have to be the first or most intelligent, you just have to be willing to be principled.

One of the principles of nature that I have been studying and observing is the law of cause and effect. This law states that for every effect, there is a cause and for every cause, there is an effect.

There is so much to learn about this law and sometimes, it can sound weird but one of the summaries of this law is that;

INTENTIONS or THOUGHTS creates ACTIONS or CAUSES which in turn creates a REACTION or EFFECT.

In essence, a reaction or effect is not just created by an action, rather its creation starts from the intention behind the action.

This is clearly demonstrated in the foundation of Christianity; for God so loved (intention or thought) that He gave his only begotten son (action or cause) therefore believing in Him grants eternal life (reaction or effect). Essentially our choice to submit to God is a response to God’s love and not just Christ’s death. That love (intention) is what created the sacrifice (action) that leads to our reaction.

I was jogging a while ago and meditating/thinking at the same time, and I remembered I Corinthians 13: 3. This was the verse my dad used to teach me about INTENTION. That day, we were discussing something, I can’t remember what exactly, but then he told me to get my bible out and read this verse. This is a verse I am very familiar with, as I have been taught about how love was important with it. However that day, my dad’s focus was on the paradox in that verse.

He said Ayooluwa, consider the contradiction, that a person could give all their goods to the poor, a person could give up their body to be burned and still NOT have love. He said when you think about it logically, to give up all your goods to the poor, to give yourself to be burned can be considered an extreme show of goodness, of generosity, of selflessness etc but do not be deceived, all of this can be done without love, that is, without the right intention. Sometimes the intention can be as simple as wanting to create a certain perception or reputation of being nice to wanting to place yourself like a savior or martyr or whatever.

He then went on to tell me; you have to get to a point where you are not moved just by a person’s words or actions, because you should know that a nice person is not necessarily a kind person.
Niceness is action, Kindness is intention. Kindness can birth niceness but niceness is not always a result of kindness.
What you should look and strive for is kindness.

He said this is the same reason why some people can use this bible in your hand to create love and liberty in people or to create bondage and oppression.
What matters is the intention of the person using it. Same thing, different intentions, different effect. (Cause and effect).

I did not really assimilate this lesson at that point in my life, as at that time, I could not fully relate to what he was saying, but with growth and life experiences, that lesson clicked. I have come to learn that a lot of times, we can be carried away by people’s words and/or actions. Some people even say, I do not look at words, I look at actions but I say the effect of a word or an action is dictated by the intention, and that is why it is important to consider intentions.

Intentions can be tricky to figure out, because they are usually beneath the words and actions, and when we isolate just words or just actions or just both, we can make mistakes or judge an action wrongly. A simple example is the effect criticism produces (I know there are overly sensitive people who do not respond to criticism well, but taking those people aside). The action of criticism in itself is not the problem, the intention behind it is what matters. That is what creates the effect of pulling a person up or pushing a person down.

A lot of us subconsciously understand intention but we do not consciously use it. It is the reason why, for example as a lady, your friend can tell you; “I think you should change your shirt” and a part of you can almost tell if she is saying it because she thinks the shirt does not flatter you and she thinks you can look better, or she is saying it because she thinks you look so good in the shirt and she does not want you to “outshine” her. No matter her intention, her words remain the same, however when you take intention into play, your reaction to change or not change that shirt is not just driven by what she said, rather it is driven by why she is saying it.

I think that in order to have a purposeful and successful life or relationship with people, we must consider the intentions of people we allow close to us. We must exercise wisdom and study patterns of their words and actions before we know where to place their actions, since these people will directly or indirectly influence at least some of our decisions.

This is part of the reason why people will say quality over quantity, I think this should also apply to the people we keep in our lives. “Be courteous to all but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.” is a good advice. This is because we do not have the capacity to keep up with the intention of people, we are not mind readers and it takes wisdom, awareness, intuition and studying to understand a person’s intention.

If your boat is not going to sink, you have to be sure no one in it is punching holes for water to come in.
The eagerness or niceness of a person to help you row your boat can make you overlook so many other things, and before you realize it, there are so many holes in your boat, you are sinking. The sad part is some of these people will then pretend to help you save the boat. It becomes a case of the person giving you allergy medicine for your allergies is actually the allergen.

I can go on and on but the summary of what I am trying to say is this;

1. Consider that words and actions are not enough to judge a person. Their patterns and their intention is very important.
2. Get Wisdom. The bible was not joking when it said wisdom is the principal thing. Solomon sure knew what he was saying when he asked God for wisdom. Pray, ask God, think, observe, read, study, learn, observe, think.
3. Decide to be intentional in your actions. Understand that your intentions, whether conscious or subconscious creates certain effects in your life. Be clear about why you are doing what you are doing as this helps to eliminate many unnecessary actions and reactions.
4. Be very intentional about the people you allow close to you, to speak over you, to guide and direct you, to row your boat with you etc. Some of the effect in your life is created by these people’s action which is directly related to their intention whether positive or negative.