A Willing Spirit

Several women from our church have been reading “Having a Mary Spirit:  Allowing God to Change us from the Inside Out” by Joanna Weaver for the Women’s Summer Bible Study.  Just the other week we read a chapter on having a willing spirit.  It was quite an eye-opener to say the least.  I tend to think that I have a willing spirit, but after reading this chapter I realized just how unwilling my spirit can be.

Joanna asked the question, “What is one thing in which you’ve said, ‘God, I’ll do whatever you want, but please don’t ask me to. . .’?”  Did she honestly expect us to just have “one thing”?  Sadly, unlike Mary when God calls me to something I don’t simply say “May it be as you have said Lord”.  I’m much more likely to throw out questions, argue that he must surely intend for someone else to do it, or ignore him all together.  Yet I long to have a willing spirit. . . a heart and mind that says yes to God and a will and a body that sets that yes in motion.

God desires that we have a willing spirit. He promises to teach, counsel, and guide us; He promises to watch over us and instruct us. As for our part, He asks that we be willing. He asks that we be inclined to Him. He asks that we not be like stubborn beasts that have to be pushed and pulled, but rather like trusting sheep who follow their Shepherd unreservedly.

I can relate to the words the hymn writer sang, “Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.” But when I first came to God in faith, He gave me a new heart. Ezekiel tells us He transplanted our heart of stone with one of flesh. I have a new nature and the Holy Spirit residing within me. God wants to foster within me a heart that is submissive to Him without compulsion. He wants me to cheerfully, willingly love, follow, and live for Him. In light of all He’s done for me, this should be easy; I just need to be reminded from time to time.

• 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 “The love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”
• Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
• 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.”
• Romans 14:7-9 “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.”

I am not my own.  I have been purchased with Christ’s blood. He died for me  so that I might live with Him. He wants me near to Him, following Him, listening to Him, obeying Him with a willing heart. Furthermore, the very God who desires these things of me has given me the means. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,” Paul said in Galatians chapter 2. Christ lives in us, His Holy Spirit lives in us, to give us not only the desire, but the ability to do that which is pleasing to Him.

I wonder, what God could do through me if I would stop questioning His plan, stop trying to understand, and simply say yes.  I don’t know, but I want to find out.