Trading the Will for the Well - Part 2

In the previous article we began a discussion of the role of willpower in a Christ  follower. 

Living a life that glorifies God is far less about willpower than most people have been conditioned to believe.  Trading our will for the Well takes a lifetime of commitment to the process of transformation of our inner person.  Therefore, a “deeper” look into the topic here in Part Two seems warranted (pun intended). 

Understanding the difference between willfulness and willingness helps in understanding how it can be so difficult to drink from Christ’s well instead of trying to create our own.    Psychiatrist and author Gerald May, MD in chapter one of a book called Will and Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology writes,

“Willingness and willfulness cannot be explained in a few words, for they are very subtle qualities, often overlapping and very easily confused with each other. But we can begin by saying that willingness implies a surrendering of one’s self-separateness, an entering-into, an immersion in the deepest processes of life itself. It is a realization that one already is a part of some ultimate cosmic process and it is a commitment to participation in that process. In contrast, willfulness is the setting of oneself apart from the fundamental essence of life in an attempt to master, direct, control, or otherwise manipulate existence. More simply, willingness is saying yes to the mystery of being alive in each moment. Willfulness is saying no, or perhaps more commonly, “Yes, but ...”

It is obvious that we cannot say yes to everything we encounter; many specific things and situations in life are terribly destructive and must be resisted. But willingness and willfulness do not apply to specific things or situations. They reflect instead the underlying attitude one has toward the wonder of life itself. Willingness notices this wonder and bows in some kind of reverence to it. Willfulness forgets it, ignores it, or at its worst, actively tries to destroy it. Thus willingness can sometimes seem very active and assertive, even aggressive. And willfulness can appear in the guise of passivity.”   

When we say “yes” to God (by believing in Jesus as our Savior), we take a first drink from the well of salvation.  The sacrifice that Jesus made is enough.  By spilling his blood on the cross, the provision for forgiveness of sin is completely taken care of.  Our willingness to accept this provision is demonstrated by confessing, repenting, and accepting the free gift of forgiveness.  Willingness to surrender delivers us from the slavery of willfulness.     

We give up mastery for mystery.   We begin a journey of self-surrender to relinquish self-will, self-determination, self-sufficiency, and any other part of “self” in opposition to the rule of God.  Our journey is like traveling on a two rail train track.  We root out and let go of willfulness as it comes to light, and we cling to willingness to be transformed into the image of Jesus for more useful service and meaning in life.  

Peaking further into the psychological realm discussed in the previous article, we find two parts that seem to battle at times.  The psycho-somatic is the part of our soul most connected to our physical body.  It manifests with physical sensations, thoughts, and feelings centered around the body.  The psycho-spiritual is the part of our soul most connected with our personal spirit.  It is far less sensory and more intuitive as it is centered around the spirit.  When we believe in Jesus, and begin drinking from the well of “living water” as Jesus called it, the source of our life becomes more psycho-spiritual (spirit oriented) and less psycho-somatic (body oriented).  The spirit part of our being becomes more and more dominant.  This is a key characteristic of the transformation of the inner man. 

The Holy Spirit is the well we are tapping into.  The Holy Spirit becomes a greater and greater influencer of our whole being.  As our willingness to surrender our soul to the Holy Spirit increases, our soul becomes more and more infused by the Holy Spirit.  As our soul is filled more by the Holy Spirit, there is less space for the body-centered activity to operate.  It’s like clean water being continuously poured into a pitcher of contaminated water.  Under a spigot (or fountain) of fresh clean water, the dirt (and dirty water) will eventually all spill out and be washed away as it is replaced by the clean.   Willfulness is woefully inadequate to accomplish this transformation in our lives.  We need the fresh fountain of the Holy Spirit rejuvenating our lives on a continual basis pouring the cleanness into our being. 

As disciples of Jesus, we are called to be disciple-makers.   Staying connected to the well (fountain) gives empowerment for pouring out to others.   The Bible says, “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.  He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ (John  7:37-38).  This is not only good news for our own soul, but every soul we come in contact with.  God pours into us so we can pour into others.   The truth is, we have nothing to give to others of redeeming value, that we have not first received from God.  Our willful accomplishments have human limits, but willing surrender produces fruit beyond measure. 

This is illustrated clearly by one of Christ’s disciples, Peter.  On the last night before his crucifixion, while in his earthly body, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet.  As John 13 records, Peter willfully resisted this physical and spiritual interaction with Jesus (see John 13:5-8).  After Peter said “never shall you wash my feet,” Jesus answered, ““If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”  Simon Peter *said to Him, “Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head” (John 13:8-9).  Peter’s willfulness changed to willingness and demonstrated true discipleship.   Jesus said to the disciples, “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you” (John 13:14-15).   Jesus was about to leave the earth, and for his message to be carried on, he needed his disciples to teach and do as he taught and did.  

In these intimate moments at the “last supper” (as it is called) Jesus revealed to his closest 12 disciples that one among them is a betrayer.  It soon became apparent that Judas was the one whose willfulness won out over willingness.  Even one of Christ’s closest disciples lost the battle within.  Nevertheless, to the other eleven Jesus also used this opportunity to explain the foot washing ceremony in more detail.  He said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).  As Jesus was surrendered to His Father’s will, he is so commanding his disciples to do likewise. The way surrender is expressed is through love.  Love demonstrates a willing heart.  Love keeps the cycle of disciple making going.   

Forgiveness is one of the primary ways to express love.   In other articles I discuss what Jesus means when he says “forgive from the heart” in Matthew 18 (see article Forgiveness http://authoredhersh.blogspot.com/2014/01/forgiveness.html). 

Forgiveness is one of the most practical examples of the need for practicing well power over willpower.  Surrendering to God the ultimate rights of judgment requires a spiritual transaction that willpower cannot produce.  Forgiveness is more than a willful decision.  It is a decision to cooperate with God’s means of justice and mercy.  But the part of forgiving that requires surrender has to come through spiritual transformation and willingness to trust God to be the rightful Judge in any and every situation.  Deciding to forgive is incomplete without following through to receive and carry out God’s direction on how to show his love to the offender.  I can speak from hard learned lessons that showing love to an offender takes great well power.  

We may think willpower is enough for a season, but sooner or later an offense becomes so big that we discover our need for a deeper well than we can ever will to dig on our own. 

One caution is not to equate or confuse our spiritual condition with so-called spiritual disciplines.  Engaging in activity that attaches the word “discipline” to Bible reading, meditation, or prayer does not automatically (willfully) translate to transformation of the heart.  I don’t mean to minimize the importance of practicing self-discipline (especially in these practices), but the enormity of our need for divine intervention requires discipleship (following after Christ), not discipline (self-determined followership). 

Relating to God as all three in One, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, requires more than exercising the parts of our being over which we have direct control.  It is impossible for a human in one lifetime to experience everything about God there is to experience.  But what gives purpose and meaning in each day he gives us to live on this earth, is to experience as much of God’s nature and character as we possibly can.  The Bible further clarifies what it means to “drink from the well” of salvation when Jesus said, “true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.  God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24).  God is not a concept to be understood.  God is a person to be known and be known by.

To practice greater well power, here are some questions to ask ourselves.  To what degree overall might I be relying on will over well?  What specific areas of my life?  What might I need to surrender to show willingness to engage the process to transform from willpower to well power?  Do I need more well power to forgive (a person, group, or situation)?   How might I be a more devoted worshiper in spirit and truth?  Is there something(s) in my life I need to give up that is in the way of gaining access to God (the Well)?  What is the next step I need to take in surrendering it to God?

            May all who are thirsty have their thirst quenched at the Well of Christ Jesus the Lord.

 by Ed Hersh, Blue Rock BnB Healing Ministry

Trading the Will for the Well

Perhaps the most common source of struggle and failure in a Christian’s life is a misunderstanding of the role of willpower in the transformation process.  The belief that spiritual maturity is chiefly dependent on exercising greater willpower to change into a better (more godly) person, is exactly the opposite of the truth.  If that statement is shocking to you, let me explain.  

            The reader may have heard the slogan “if it’s gonna be, it’s up to me.”  While there is an element of truth to the statement, it does not work spiritually speaking.  Clarifying the difference between, and contrasting the physical realm and the spiritual realm, helps to bring understanding.  The physical realm is identified by laws that govern how the natural world operates.  For example, our bodies are subject to the law of gravity.  Gravity keeps us from floating into outer space.  Gravity is also demonstrated if we step out of a window on the tenth floor of a building.  Our body will be injured in the fall, but this is to be expected.  Even flapping our arms will not cause us to fly.  Whether we believe in gravity or not, it is enforced on our physical body. 

The spiritual realm is equally real, and similarly governed by laws (moral principles).  God set in motion an orderly reality as revealed in the Bible.  His commandments identify a standard of righteousness to protect us and provide passage for our experiences to go well for us.  When we sin (disobey God), it can be painful because harmful consequences result when disrupting God’s order for the way things work.  As broken body parts show how misalignment with laws in the physical realm occur, brokenness in the spiritual realm separates us from God and mis-aligns us with his ways. 

The intersection of the physical and spiritual realms is called the soul of man.  This third realm of reality is called the psychological realm by author Ed Kurath in chapter two of his book, I Will Give You Rest (see http://divinelydesigned.com).  Kurath explains that it operates in accordance with our own powers and abilities.  Habit patterns, our intellect, and our own willpower are aspects of the psychological realm. Our willpower has been given to us as a tool to manage this psychological realm, and it only has authority there.   Kurath says,

“But we have made a huge mistake, because we have believed that our willpower also has authority in the spiritual realm. However, our willpower only has authority in the psychological realm. We cannot overcome or defy the physical laws or spiritual laws with our willpower.

Our willpower is impotent in defying the laws of the physical realm, and it was never given to us for this purpose. We cannot fly by flapping our arms. We cannot lift a 500 pound weight. We discover that no matter how much we want to lift it, we can't. We can will it, but we cannot perform it.

What is perhaps harder to understand is that our willpower is as impotent in the spiritual realm as it is in the physical realm. It was never given to us for the purpose of managing the spiritual realm. We discover this impotence when we try to do a spiritually impossible task, like obeying the laws of God. We discover that no matter how hard we want to do the good that we ought to, we cannot. We can "will" it, but we cannot perform it. O wretched man that I am (Romans 7:24). Our failure to do the good that we want to do is not due to a lack of willpower, it is due to our misunderstanding about reality. We are under the illusion that we ought to be able to "will" it and thus do it.”

Willpower can be used to our advantage for some things controlled by our intellect and reason.  If we have a bad habit, for example, of eating snacks instead of healthy food, we may be able to change the foods we eat with practice and repeating the good behavior.  But when a  bad behavior or habit is rooted in a spiritually poor condition (in the spiritual realm), spiritual laws take over. Trying to stop (or even interrupt) the operation of God’s spiritual laws is a bit like an ant in the middle of a highway telling a truck to stop as it is about to crush the ant. 

Many problems people face in life (eg. very destructive habits, addictions, generational transmissions, destructive relational conflicts, chronic mood swings, etc.) are perpetuated by a delusion that willpower alone will gain the victory.  Their failure is the result of "trying hard" to quit - making a decision with their intellect and relying on their willpower to bring it to pass.  They are doomed to failure because God's laws are his, not ours to uphold. This misunderstanding is a big problem, and it is widespread among Christ-followers.  The Bible makes very powerful statements regarding the illusion of our will.  It is a universal flaw in mankind to think we can manage our own life in our own strength.  It is so automatic, insidious, and covert that we don't even realize what we are doing.   (Note some of these spiritual laws like the laws of judgment are discussed in other articles; see The Unoffendable Heart http://authoredhersh.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-unoffendable-heart.html ).

            There is a power to super-cede willpower.  That power is well power.  Jesus is the well.  Jesus is the provision for obeying God’s commands.  Well power calls us to “be” like Jesus and not just “act” like Jesus.  Jesus invites us to drink from the well of living water.  A story recorded by the gospel of John about a woman drawing water at a well, says this, “Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again;  but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14). 

If someone is traveling in the desert, thirsty, and encounters a well, would they first try to dig another well beside the one that exists?  The course of action would be to recognize the problem of needing water, believe in the ability of the well to pump the water, decide to work the pump, and act by working the pump.   Similar to this physical world example, the spiritual realm works like it.  The deepest need for every soul is to re-connect with God through Jesus.  The steps to meet the need are to first recognize the need, believe in Jesus as the provision for meeting the need, use willpower to decide to activate the provision, and act by praying and waiting on God for further direction and strength. 

Leaders seem to have an especially hard time surrendering their will for the well.  One reason is the overly high expectations of perfection on the part of followers.  Leaders are expected to make things happen and implore others to make things happen (assuming willpower as the chief motivator).  By definition leaders lead.   Leaders are typically high energy, high achieving, highly will-driven catalysts, who perceive dependence on outside motivational resources as a sign of weakness.   Drinking from the well (with God as the source), can too easily become an after thought.  Whether parenting, pastoring, functioning as CEO, or just being a good friend to a neighbor in need, leadership requires first being good leaders of self. 

Like Jesus, good leaders must first be good followers of their Master.  All through the book of John in the Bible, we are told how Jesus did everything according to the will of his Father in heaven.  For all followers of Jesus this means that Jesus is the only way to eat spiritual bread and drink spiritual water.  “For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.  He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:55-56).  This statement from Jesus is part of an explanation after one of the first miracles he performed.  Read it in John 6.  Jesus had thousands of people sit down on the grass and Jesus took a boy’s lunch box with 5 bread cakes and 2 fish, blessed and multiplied it, and fed the crowd to satisfaction.  After their bellies were full, they acknowledged him as the great Prophet (John 6:14).  But, by the end of this teaching people were ready to stone him to death (John 7:1), and very few disciples remained in the crowd. (John 6:60-61,66-67). 

So what made this such a difficult teaching to accept?  Jesus performed a miracle which physically fed thousands of people to demonstrate a spiritual law (truth).  God is the well.  God is the provider of eternal life, and there is no way for people to work their way to God on their own willpower.   They cannot even sustain their life on earth without his provision.   Jesus was directly challenging their self-will and self-righteous behaviors when,  “Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.  He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:53-54).  Jesus is the only source of spiritual food and water that transforms our soul.  No good deed performed by a person’s will carries any significance in saving a soul--neither in conversion nor ongoing sanctification. 

We do well to ask (as did Jesus listeners in the story above), “What is our part in all this?”   Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work .., that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (John 6:29).  In sum, our “work” is to surrender to the process of transformation.  It can take much effort to change entrenched harmful “beliefs”--including false assumptions gathered, erroneous conclusions drawn, condemning judgments cast,  bad subconscious decisions made  (see other blog articles for more on this).  Sometimes I find myself (even on a daily basis) in a similar dilemma as Jesus followers in the story above.  Do I really want to change (toward God’s direction)?  Do I want to let God in control of the change?  What beliefs (assumptions, conclusions, judgments) are in the way of God working his change in me?  What ways of thinking need to change?   Our “work” is to believe by surrendering to God’s work of bringing things to our awareness, remitting the shortcomings we confess, forgiving the sins for which we repent, and giving us a future and hope for God’s name to be famed through it all.

 by Ed Hersh, Blue Rock BnB Healing Ministry