INTENTION VERSUS EXECUTION

Saturday: July 4, 2020

Reference: Matthew 9:14-17

Matthew 9:17 No one pours new wine into old wineskins. The wine would swell and burst the old skins. Then the wine would be lost, and the skins would be ruined. New wine must be put into new wineskins. Both the skins and the wine will then be safe.

Most of the time, when people say “that is not what I intended”, they are speaking an honest truth. In their hearts and minds, there was a plan of approach; a means to achieve specific targets. The only thing that fell out of place was the execution of this intention. In other words, the intention and the execution were misaligned, resulting in an outcome that was in comparative terms ‘unintended’.

In the Gospel today, we read about two good intentions with inappropriate executions: the first intention was to mend the tear in an old cloth using a new patch and the second, to store fresh wine using old wine skins. The consequence of these executions was the enlarging of the tear in the cloth and a bursting of the wine skins, leading to losing both the wine and skins.

Thus, we observe that right execution does not always follow the intention, sometimes the execution is way off the intended target. However, this does not detract from the fact that these intentions were good. Unfortunately, many people only look at the end results – the execution and outcome. The process, the heart and intentions behind those results don’t matter, and that is what makes many of our celebrations of success shallow and cause us to take offence easily.

#sly