Are You Willing?

This morning in my barn I prayed, “Increase my capacity to know You.” I told God that I longed to be a deep well, that I longed for Him to increase my capacity for Him. And the Spirit communicated, “Are you willing....?” In that moment He gave me understanding that longing is not willingness. 

He helped me see the error we often make by assuming that our longing for something equates to our willingness to actually pursue it. You see, there was a time in my life that I longed to quit drinking, but for a long time I wasn’t willing. I longed to know God, but for a long time I wasn’t willing to read my Bible. God’s work in us is a symbiotic relationship between longing and willingness. The longing in you for the things of God is a sign of your salvation, it is a witness to the presence of the Holy Spirit in you, because none of us have a natural desire for such things. Our natural desires are selfish, because the natural man is still in bondage to Self. 

Through our faith in the cross of Jesus Christ—the crucifixion of His flesh as payment for sin— we are willingly placing Self on that cross to be crucified too. Self joins Christ in that death and we become a new creation that is raised to new life. But our subsequent spiritual growth, the progressive sanctification of our consciousness and being, happens through experience. God uses the circumstances of our life to teach us how to live as that new creation. How to live in increasing willingness to be utterly and completely surrendered to our Creator— to truly live under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Thus, the longing is present because of His Spirit. But He continues to ask, “Are you willing...?” 

Little by little, circumstance by circumstance, He shapes us and molds us as we consciously and willingly give ourselves over to Him more and more. This is what Paul means when he tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12). This is what Paul is talking about when he says, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life” (Eph 2:10).
This morning when I asked God to increase my capacity for Him and He asked me, “Are you willing...?” I paused. 

I paused because I am a woman who is intimately familiar with the severity of God. I love Him but I fear Him. So I whispered, “Yes my Lord, I am willing, but I also pray that You will make me able.” To be a deep well requires digging, and sometimes God’s hands can be excruciating. There is displacement that takes place when you dig, because spiritual transactions cost a pound of flesh. To have more of Him, means there must be less of you.

(Phil 2:12,13) Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose.

(Mark 9:23,24) “If You can?” echoed Jesus. “All things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief!”
(John 3:30) He must increase, but I must decrease.

(Rom 6:16-18) Do you not know that when you offer yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey, whether you are slaves to sin leading to death, or to obedience leading to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

(Posted on Facebook 11/24/2020 Talitha Koum)