We always do what we believe

"5" pancake, followed by epic birthday present/project. 

This week I'm reading Psalm 119.

Two verses in the same stanza particularly struck me as connected.

I believe in Your commandments.

With all my heart I will observe Your precepts.

Psalm 119:66, 69

I know the Bible often reiterates the same idea in two different ways within a couplet.  So this makes sense:  if you believe in the commandments, you will naturally do them.  

This thought expanded to:  we always do what we believe in.

I homeschool because I believe in it.


I feed us nutritious stuff because I believe it makes our bodies healthy.


I certainly go to church because I believe there's a God and He's worth worshipping.

Everything we do, in fact, can be traced back to, and reveals, our beliefs.

This week, for example, we dug up a major section of our yard by hand and hired two dump trucks to create a massive sand pit--because we believe it will give our children hours of fun.

[We also believe, quite optimistically, that the sand tracked into our house will not drive us straight to clinical insanity.]

Today I ate {a lot of} chocolate cake because I believed it would make me happy and in fact my happiness would be severely curtailed without it.


I took Jeddy to the orthodontist because I believe braces are worth the pain and the cost for a lovely set of straight teeth.


I entered the orthodontist's office in my GPS without looking at the address because I believed I had enough phone battery to complete the trip and would therefore not get lost.


(Sometimes our beliefs turn out to be erroneous.)

What action point or life change will come about from these reflections, I do not know.

But maybe the next time I'm baffled by my behavior {why did I eat All The Cake?}, I'll at least get one step further by realizing that what we do with all our heart, we first believed in.

Your testimonies are wonderful;

Therefore my soul observes them.

Psalm 119:129