January 20, 2019

A BATTLE OF WILLS

For a long time in my spiritual niaveity I often wondered if God had not possibly made a mistake in His creation process, that being bestowing on each human a free will. That is the one piece of me that gets me into more trouble than anything else, because it gives us individually the power to over-ride God's will. When this happens it is never pretty.

Free will given to each of us is vitally important to God. God wants our love but if it were created intrinsically as part of our DNA it would not have value. It would spring from His Own Will and not freely be a choice on our part.

Let me pose a possible scenario. Suppose God's Will is for me to attend a bible study and the Holy Spirit is prompting me to go but my free will wants to go to the bar and party with my friends. What I have gained from expressing my own free will and ignoring the promptings of God's will is a massive day long migraine hangover with feelings of shame for some of my behavior and fear of what I might have done that I can't remember. Had I gone to the bible study I would wake with a “spiritual hangover” laced with a multitude of blessings.

I realize that the example I've brought forth is extreme but the principle is simply that when we choose our own path rather than following God's intended plan for us, negative outcomes can plague us and we can lose touch with the power to keep our lives on track. It is important to watch for red flags when we are weighing our choices. If the activity we are contemplating requires any level of secretiveness to it, the choice is clearly wrong. Paul points out that negative behavior is most often done in the dark so that it isn't visible to others.

Most of our plans coincide quite well with God's Will such as spending the day at the lake with family or spending a weekend helping an elderly neighbor with yard or housework. The most important thing to watch for is red flags that twist in our conscience or still, small voices that whisper, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Listen for God's Holy Spirit to help you make choices – your will or God's Will? Trust me when I say a spiritual hangover with a multitude of blessings is so much better than a day of migraines, fear and shame.