Sessions with Sydney is a weekly column by features editor Sydney Ray. For more installments of Sydney’s ideas, opinions and ramblings, check out the opinions page, and check back every Friday for a new issue.

“Actions speak louder than words.”

We have all heard this cliche before, and it seems to be universally accepted. But after being nudged into thought by my pastor last week at church, I started to wonder if it is really true.

I decided that a person’s intentions are most important – not their actions. If I was judged from every action or sin I have ever committed, I would be condemned. However, by explaining my intentions, I have fairly minimized the amount of trouble which I have gotten into.

Actions are important, there is no doubt about that. If a person claims something but consistently acts in opposition to their claim, then their intentions might not be what they claim they are or they may be wrestling with an issue and trying to overcome a problem, but it’s nobody’s job to try and decide except their own.

A perfect illustration is a drug addict. They may say that they are trying to stop using, and they may really be. Nobody knows the their real intentions except them.

So what are intentions? How can we be sure of ours? And how can we prove them to others?

My own simplified definition which I have adapted is that intentions are the conditions of a person’s heart and their deepest desires of what they want their life to be like. An intention can be anything from an ambition to love other people unconditionally to a getting into a particular college.

We must be sure of our intentions. If we are not sure, then we will be wishy-washy. We cannot wholeheartedly fight for something we aren’t even positively sure about.

Finally, intentions are not about being proven. It is incredibly hard to pin down a person’s deepest desires for their life because sometimes people do things that contradict what they truly want for themselves.

We cannot always explain our intentions to others, because they might question our actions with unfair criticism. As long as someone is sure what they want for themselves and they are on the path towards getting where they want to be, that is all that matters.