The Will of Man

A friend commented, “I thought you wrote the blog for your own benefit.  So why did you quit writing?” So true. I write for my own benefit. I took a Sabbatical from writing, for my own benefit. Or, perhaps a perceived benefit. My perceived benefit being that, if I discontinued writing, I could be more private. Less vulnerable.

The will of man as a topic puts me under an intense searchlight regarding my own vulnerability.

I have a black and white understanding of the Power of Christ living in me. Philippians 2:13-15 teaches that “…God worketh in you both to will and do…his good pleasure. That ye may be blameless…without rebuke…among whom ye shine as lights in the world.”  My already mentioned all-or-nothing perception of these verses compels me to believe I should have a clear enough relationship and a full enough understanding, that this should close the subject of the will.

For those of us who have strayed into the world of addictions and addictive behaviour, the aforementioned black and white acceptance of God working within us should be the cure-all for all these behaviours.

My dependence on alcohol overuse led me, with council and family support, to agree to a 10-week enrollment in a Rehab Centre on the west coast. I cannot relate to you that there was a specific time (a wow moment) that God took away my craving for alcoholic beverages. However. By His grace, I have been in full abstinence for approximately 15 years. I am truly, truly grateful. But, indeed, the power to abstain is the smallest part of the past 15 years of coming to love Christ more and Don less.

The ups and downs of learning to cope with addictive behaviour has been a journey that I am profoundly thankful for. Friends, I have not conquered Don’s Will!  If there is a time that a closer surrender to God will cure me of my addictive behaviour, to where I can claim the freedom of 15 years “clean”, praise be. Folks, I have not yet arrived.

I have, however, found a new kind of joy in serving the Lord. Serving the Lord no longer is “staying within the fence of the Church”. The fence of the church is there to help me. Nevertheless, I realize that to shorten the arm of Grace, to merely strive to stay inside the “fence”, would never keep me.

I look sadly at friends who go through periods where their focus appears to be Church membership-oriented. They are missing the ride! They are staying within the defensive zone of their life’s “hockey game”. They refuse to openly acknowledge that their will is giving them great trouble. But then, my will, likewise, gives me great trouble.

But God worketh in us both to will and do…his good pleasure. I wish for myself and all of you readers not to allow disappointments in your performance to ruin your will to “get up and try again.”