10. The inner being at work

So far I have taken the inner words one at a time. Now I want to turn it round and ask what the inner being actually does: how it feels, knows and hears, remembers and forgets, thinks, speaks, wants, chooses, weighs right and wrong, relates to God and relates to other people, and how it hides and discloses. And in each of these, which of the inner words Scripture reaches for.

I take these activities one at a time in the sections that follow (10.1 to 10.11). But in life they do not happen one at a time. A feeling becomes a thought, a thought becomes a word, and a word becomes a deed. So before I take them apart, I want to follow one path along which Scripture traces them working together.

From a thought to a deed

Read side by side, the verses trace a path.

Thoughts arise. "To you, O king, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be after this" (Daniel 2:29). "Why do doubts arise in your hearts?" (Luke 24:38).
They lodge. "How long shall your wicked thoughts lodge within you?" (Jeremiah 4:14).
They weigh and judge. "We esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted" (Isaiah 53:4).
They take the shape of a plan. "He plots trouble while on his bed" (Psalm 36:4).
They reach the tongue, the lips and the eyes. "Your tongue plots destruction" (Psalm 52:2). "Whoever winks his eyes plans dishonest things; he who purses his lips brings evil to pass" (Proverbs 16:30).
They reach the hand and the feet. "Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in the power of their hand" (Micah 2:1). "A heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil" (Proverbs 6:18). "Their feet run to evil … their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity" (Isaiah 59:7).

No single verse lists these six steps. The order is my reading of many verses together. But the stories show the path being walked.

David "said in his heart, 'Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape to the land of the Philistines'" (1 Samuel 27:1). And he went.
Jeroboam "said in his heart, 'Now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David'" (1 Kings 12:26). Two verses later, "the king took counsel and made two calves of gold" (12:28). A private sentence became a nation's idolatry.
The tenants in the parable reason it through together: "they said to themselves, 'This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours'" (Luke 20:14).

The same path runs toward good.

"When I think on my ways, I turn my feet to your testimonies" (Psalm 119:59). The thinking reaches the feet.
Joshua is told to meditate on the law day and night "so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it" (Joshua 1:8).

There can be a pause on the path, and the pause matters: "The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things" (Proverbs 15:28).

What lodges is not always a plan. Thoughts that lodge can also act back on the person who holds them. "My thoughts answer me, because of my haste within me" (Job 20:2). "My thoughts greatly alarmed me, and my color changed, but I kept the matter in my heart" (Daniel 7:28). Daniel's thoughts stayed with him, but they did not move on toward a deed. He kept them. So the second step can be a lodging that plots, or a keeping that waits.

The path can start with a feeling

The path above begins with a thought. Scripture also traces one that begins with a feeling, and anger shows it most clearly. Saul is the clearest case.

Something is heard. The women sing, "Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands" (1 Samuel 18:7).
Anger rises. "And Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him" (18:8).
It becomes a reckoning. "They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands, and what more can he have but the kingdom?" (18:8).
It watches. "And Saul eyed David from that day on" (18:9).
It reaches the hand. "Saul hurled the spear" (18:11).
It becomes a plan. "Now Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines" (18:25).

Esau's path is the same. He "hated Jacob because of the blessing", then "said to himself … 'then I will kill my brother Jacob'" (Genesis 27:41), and the plan kept the anger warm: he "comforts himself about you by planning to kill you" (27:42).

This path can be broken, and Scripture shows where. God speaks to Cain at the second step: "Why are you angry …? … sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, and you must rule over it" (Genesis 4:6–7). Nehemiah, very angry, stops at the third: "I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the nobles" (Nehemiah 5:7). And for Esau, time and forgetting broke it: "Esau ran to meet him and embraced him" (Genesis 33:4).

The path runs back

The path does not end at the deed. What was devised comes back to the one who devised it.

Haman's "evil plan that he had devised against the Jews should return on his own head" (Esther 9:25).
"He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head" (Psalm 7:15–16).
"Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds!" (Micah 2:1). And two verses later, "behold, against this family I am devising disaster" (2:3). The deviser meets the same verb coming back, with God as its subject.
Anger poured out comes back. "Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink — you pour out your wrath and make them drunk … The cup in the Lord's right hand will come around to you" (Habakkuk 2:15–16). Provoking God harms the provoker: "Is it not themselves, to their own shame?" (Jeremiah 7:19).
It comes back for good too: "The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance" (Proverbs 21:5). "Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established" (Proverbs 16:3).

Where I am answerable

The commands meet this path from the second step onward.

"Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts" (Isaiah 55:7).
"Let none of you devise evil against another in your heart" (Zechariah 7:10).
"Do not say in your heart … 'It is because of my righteousness'" (Deuteronomy 9:4).
"Take every thought captive to obey Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5).
"Wash your heart from evil" (Jeremiah 4:14).

I have found no command about what first arises. But what arises is not neutral. "Every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5). "Out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts" (Mark 7:21). The commands address what lodges, what is planned, what is said and what is done.

Scripture does more than command. It also answers the sentence the heart speaks. "If you say in your heart, 'These nations are greater than I. How can I dispossess them?' you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt" (Deuteronomy 7:17–18). The answer to a fearful inner sentence is a remembered act of God.

How the activities connect

Each section that follows ends by naming the activities it touches. Taken together so far, they look like this:

Hearing feeds thinking. What is heard and remembered is what the heart then ponders (10.2 → 10.4).
Thinking passes into speaking, and speaking is heard, by people and by God (10.4 → 10.5 → 10.2, 10.9).
Thinking passes into choosing and into the deed (10.4 → 10.7, and the path above).
Thinking and feeling move each other. "His thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together" (Daniel 5:6) (10.4 ↔ 10.1).
Wanting drives thinking. The rich man's planning serves his wanting (Luke 12:17–19) (10.6 → 10.4).
Thinking stands under right and wrong, and its own thoughts accuse or excuse it (Romans 2:15) (10.4 → 10.8).
Thinking happens together, and shared reasoning can become a shared deed (10.4 → 10.10).
Hearing kindles feeling. "I was very angry when I heard their outcry" (Nehemiah 5:6) (10.2 → 10.1).
Feeling drives thinking. Anger reckons: "what more can he have but the kingdom?" (1 Samuel 18:8) (10.1 → 10.4).
Feeling is released in speech, or turned away by it. "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger" (Proverbs 15:1) (10.1 ↔ 10.5).
Remembering and forgetting decide how long a feeling stays (10.3 ↔ 10.1).
Feeling between people becomes strife (10.1 → 10.10).
Thinking acts back on itself. Thoughts answer, alarm and weary the one who thinks them (Job 20:2; Daniel 7:28; Psalm 73:16) (10.4 → 10.4, 10.1).
Fear drives hiding. "I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself" (Genesis 3:10) (10.1 → 10.11).
What is hidden is drawn out by speech. "Tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me" (Joshua 7:19) (10.11 ↔ 10.5).
What goes out comes back. The plan returns on the head of the one who made it (Esther 9:25; Micah 2:1–3) (10.0, the path above).

Every activity can change character. The same act of thinking is discretion in one person and an evil device in another. It is a plan against that is meant to bring people back, or a plot against the messenger (Jeremiah 18:11–18). What changes it is not the act itself. The verses point to its direction, the company it keeps, the state of the heart it rises from, its pace, and whether it is brought before God. Chapter 10.4 shows this for thinking, and Chapter 11 (§4) gathers it across all the activities.

This picture is not finished. As I read more widely, I expect it to grow, and to correct itself.