It is a good thing to desire to be in God’s will.

Of course, it is not always easy to live according to God’s will even when we know what it is. When I say, “God’s will, I do not mean at this point His particular calling on your life, but how He generally wants you to live – to glorify Him and find joy in Him. This is because our will has a mind of its own. We cannot always control our will. It’s not like a muscle in that we can’t simply will it to move and it will move. It is controlled by something else. It is controlled by our desire.

“Oh that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes!” (Ps 119:5)

The way David prayed this tells me that he also had a hard time controlling his own will. He WANTED to be steadfast in keeping God’s laws. But he knew that he didn’t have complete control over it. Therefore, he’s pleading with God to watch over his own will.

How perceptive and mature of him to realize this. The older I get, the less and less control I realize I have over my own will. It is because it is controlled by my desire. And my desires are produced by my heart which is an idol factory! My evil heart keeps churning out evil desires and I have to keep killing them!

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing…. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:19-24)

What is the remedy? It’s siding with Jesus again and again, and fighting alongside Him. We must not be passive in battling our own evil desires. We must do the work of replacing it the good desire of being obedient and pleasing in God’s sight.

Fight the good fight of faith!

PH