God Motivation and the Yeahbut

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live."  But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
(Luke 10:25-29)

It seems that the "yeahbut" has been around forever.  We could make all kinds of jokes about how this one came from a lawyer and we would expect such, but the whole deal started well before that.  Remember Adam and Eve after they sinned?  They held a yeahbut rally right there in the garden wearing nothing but fig leaves and frowns.  God asked about their folly of eating the fruit He told them to keep their mouths off of, and their same mouths spouted off something that sounded a lot like the yeahbuts we've been tossing around ever since.  "Yeah, but she handed it to me!"  "Yeah, but the snake tricked me with...well...a yeahbut!"

It's funny to joke about it in that way but it's also a really sad deal when we realize that we're part of that same strain of yeahbut speaking people (and snakes!).  The yeahbut is so rotten because it accepts as true something that God has laid down for our and everyone else's good but then excuses us from being accountable to that truth.  We say that our circumstances are different.  We say that we've tried to walk by that certain instruction and it didn't work out the way we hoped it would.  Really, in our own acrobatic, weaseling ways, we're looking for that opportunity to affirm something we know in our hearts is dangerous to deny without submitting to the life-altering commitment it will impose on us.  In looking at the story at hand, I don't think that the lawyer really thought he was doing anything out of line.  He had a well thought out, well-groomed yeahbut that he probably figured Jesus hadn't thought through just yet.  "Oh Jesus, simple little Jesus, you've forgotten to define the word, 'neighbor.'  Gotcha!"  Jesus, however, had been privy to the yeahbut for a pretty long time and proceeded to tell him the story of what we call, "The Good Samaritan."

When it comes down to it, I need to ask myself a question today concerning what I'm going to do with a command like, "Love God with your all and love your neighbor."  The yeahbuts are going to creep in from every angle today so I need to be aware of them.  I'll have schedules to keep, plans to make, and opportunities I don't want to let slip past.  There are going to be times where I'll want to justify myself against any disruptions by saying that my day has go to a certain way, especially since it's filled up with "good things" already.

"Lord, guard my heart from throwing yeahbuts at You in the hours ahead.  Be my inspiration and motivation in all I do."