Daily Inspiration Quote by E. Stanley Jones

Jones is smuggling a psychological hand grenade into a moral universe that, in his era, still liked its sin and virtue neatly filed under “choices.” By splitting “actions” from “reactions,” he grants the conscious mind a kind of respectable authority while quietly demoting it from sole ruler. You can decide what you will do, yes, but you don’t fully author the flinch, the resentment, the reflexive cruelty, the panic that hijacks your tongue. For a theologian, that’s not just therapy-speak; it’s a doctrine of divided sovereignty. The self is not a single, transparent will. It’s a contested terrain.

The line works because it reframes moral seriousness without letting anyone off the hook. “Unconscious” could be a convenient alibi, but Jones blocks that escape hatch with his kicker: “the reactions are just as important.” In other words: your character is legible in what leaks out when you’re not performing your values. Your politeness is an action; your impatience is a reaction. One is curated. The other is diagnostic.

Context matters: Jones preached through the rise of modern psychology, two world wars, and a culture learning to speak in the new vocabulary of motives, trauma, and inner conflict. He’s translating that into spiritual terms: sanctification isn’t only about choosing the good; it’s about re-training the subterranean self so that goodness becomes reflex, not costume. The subtext is bracing: righteousness that only exists at the level of intention is thin; the real test is what happens when you’re tired, threatened, or unseen.