Our coddled, corrupted, self-centered will

THE SPLINTERED WILL - Our will is what comes from nothing else but us. Will is the ability to originate (or refrain from originating) an act or a thing. It is the core of who and what we are as individuals, for what arises from our will is from us alone. It is that aspect of personality that gives us a likeness to God, what we are in his image. 

The will’s primary exercise in humans is the power to select what we think about and how intently we focus on it. From this, our other decisions and actions flow, more or less. Character develops from will. God doesn’t run over our will because it is highly precious and gives the person dignity. Choice—the exercise of will and spirit—is valued and carefully guarded throughout life. We are created to be creators of good. 

The drive toward good is naturally implanted in the human will by our Creator, but the will can become splintered, corrupted, and eventually turned against itself as a result of practical self-deification. The question, What good can I bring about? is replaced by How can I get my way? As exaltation of self replaces submission and service to God, manipulation, deception, seduction, and malice replace transparency, sincerity, and goodwill. 

Though God reveals his will to us, he chooses not to override our self-conflicted will, allowing us the consequences of our choices. Good and wise inclinations are frequently defeated by the flawed inclinations of our lives: social influences, mistaken ideas, overwhelming feelings, or disconnections and ruptures in the depths of the soul. The constant character of the will apart from God is duplicity—or, more accurately, fragmentation and multiplicity. It wills many things, and these cannot be reconciled with each other. 

Turned away from God, thoughts and feelings fall into chaos. Then the human will moves irresistibly toward deception. This is the result of pretending to feel and think one way while acting in another. Often the deception involved is self-deception, so that we cannot even understand ourselves and why we do what we do.

 

Go deep to keep from strangling someone!

I gave up memorizing Scripture years ago because I’d made it into a legalism. I worked hard at getting every word right, but I never turned it over in my mind. But then certain passages became near and dear to me, and I couldn’t resist. I’d studied their structure and how they fit together. I’d meditated on them and entered into them. Certain phrases rolled off my tongue with fondness. 

Without realizing it, I’d engaged in the three keys to memorizing that Dallas mentions elsewhere: repetition, concentration (focus), and understanding. Finally, I decided to embrace Colossians 3:1-17 because it pictured who I wanted to be. So on a lark, as I sat in an almost empty shuttle bus for a thirty-minute ride, I faced the window and began memorizing it. It began making even more sense to me! I noted phrases that still puzzled me so I could study them further. It was as if my mind finally gave in to my heart, which loved the ideas expressed in this passage and wanted them to be a description of who I was becoming. 

TODAY’S EXPERIMENT - Please resist skipping this experiment. A passage of Scripture that is relatively easy to memorize is 1 Corinthians 13. If you’ve been to a few weddings, you’ve almost got it. Once you know it, you can enjoy it as a description of God (patient, kind) and of life in the kingdom (seeing dimly now, face-to-face soon!) while you’re doing yard work or waiting in line at a store. 

Before trying to memorize it, however, read it slowly—maybe every day for a week or several times a day. Print it out and carry it around with you. Relish the words and ideas. See how they fit together. Notice progressions. Picture the people you know who embody these verses. Picture God’s love for you. Get so familiar with the passage that it would be difficult not to memorize it. 

Perhaps you could give just verses 4-7 a try. They begin with two “is” statements: patient and kind. These are followed by six “does not/is not” statements: envy, boast, proud, rude, self-seeking, easily angered. These six flow back and forth from inward (envy, proud, self-seeking) to outward (boast, rude, easily angered). They’re all about self-preoccupation. 

Then come the two more complicated phrases: no record of wrongs, not delighting in evil but rejoicing in truth. Then the passage ends with the four “always” phrases (first and last begin with p): protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres. This last set has become a quick prayer for me when I’m in a business meeting and want to strangle someone. I pray that I may always protect, always trust, always hope, always persevere. [Previous posts: https://restfuljourney.blogspot.com/2020/12/renovation-of-heart-is-absolutely-mind.html ]

Getting God's thoughts as part of you & me

GOD’S THOUGHTS IN YOU - Nourishing our mind with good and godly ideas, images, information, and the ability to think creates our vision (recall the VIM - Vision-Intention-Means structure). From these, we intend to be formed so that God is a constant presence in our mind, crowding out false ideas, destructive images, misinformation about God, and crooked beliefs. 

As for means, certain tried and true disciplines aid us in the transformation of our thought life toward the mind of Christ. We cannot transform our ideas, images, information, or thought processes into Christlikeness by direct effort, but we can adopt certain practices that indirectly will have that effect. 

The most obvious thing we can do is draw certain key portions of Scripture into our mind and make them a part of the permanent fixtures of thought. This is the primary discipline for the thought life. We need to know these passages like the back of our hand, and a good way to do that is to memorize them and then constantly turn them over in our mind as we go through the events and circumstances of our lives (see Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1). 

The desired effect will not be realized by focusing on isolated verses but will come as we ingest passages such as Romans 5:1-8 or 8:1-15, 1 Corinthians 13, or Colossians 3:1-17. When we take these into our mind, our mind will become filled with the light of God himself. You might say, “I can’t memorize like that.” I assure you, you certainly can. God made your mind for it, and he will help you. He really wants you to do this. As you choose to give your time and energy to the renovation of your mind (intend it), it will happen! (Earlier posts are here: https://restfuljourney.blogspot.com/

 

Beauty from human perspective and God's panorama

FROM DIVINE CONSPIRACY, by Dallas Willard - While I was teaching in South Africa…Matthew Dickason took me out to see the beaches near his home in Port Elizabeth I stood in stunned silence and then slowly walked toward the waves. Words cannot capture the view that confronted me. I saw space and light and texture and color and power.that seemed hardly of this earth God sees this all the time Great tidal waves of joy must constantly wash through his being. 

We pay a lot of money to get a tank with a few tropical fish in it and never tire of looking at their brilliant iridescence and marvelous forms and movements. But God has seas full of them, which he constantly enjoys. Human beings can lose themselves in card games or electric trains and think they are fortunate. 

But to God there is available, “towering clouds of gases trillions of miles high, backlit by nuclear fires in newly forming stars, galaxies cartwheeling into collision and sending explosive shock waves boiling through millions of light-years of time and space.” These things are all before him, along with numberless unfolding rosebuds, souls, and songs—and immeasurably more of which we know nothing.

Cited in Dave Harris' Treasure Trove in Passing Vessels: Ordinary people leading intriguing lives. iUniverse. Kindle Edition.