Willing or Willful Before God?

As we prayerfully seek to discover and embrace the will of God through our daily duties and God’s movement in our lives, the distinction between being willing and willful may be helpful.

 

A willing person before God says in the words of Samuel:  “Speak Lord.  Your servant is listening.”  Or in the words of Mary, “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say.” A willing person has God center stage, in control and making the decisions. A willing person is available to God, trusts in God and surrenders to the movement of the Holy Spirit. A willing person seeks to discover and embrace the will of God.

 

A willful person in contrast says: “I want what I want, when I want it.” A willful person has the “I”, the ego center stage. The “I” is in control and makes the decisions. The willful person does not tune into the movement of God but rather focuses on the self. A willful person does not try to discover the will of God but rather follows his or her own will. 

 

So a willing person has God in charge. And a willful person has the self in charge. The Gospel shows us that Jesus is willing before God. In the Gospel Jesus says:  “I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” Jesus always responded immediately and totally to the will of his Father. Jesus was fully available to his Father.  He spent a great deal of time in prayer tuning into his Father’s will. 

 

The invitation to us is to be like Jesus, to be willing before God. We discover how willing we are by looking at the way we make our daily choices, at the way God and prayer fit into those choices. A few examples may be helpful. For many of us attending Mass is pretty automatic, but on a given Sunday, we may have to make a prayerful choice. We could ask: “Do I want to attend Mass today?” Or we could ask: “Does the Lord want me to attend Mass today?” The issue is who makes the decision. Who is in control? Am I willing before God or willful apart from God?

 

Another example concerns our donation of money. We could ask: “What percentage of my income am I going to give away this year?” Or we could ask: “What percentage of my income does the Lord want me to give away this year?” A willing person lets God decide, while a willful person holds onto control. 

 

Another very practical example may revolve around a Lenten penance. A willful person may ask, “What am I going to do for Lent this year? Am I going to receive the Sacrament of Penance?” In contrast a willing person may ask, “God, what do you want me to do for Lent this year? Lord, do you want me to receive the Sacrament of Penance?” The answer to these questions may be the same, but the focus is different, the one in charge is different.

 

A related question is, “Where does our power, our spiritual energy come from?” A willing person receives their power from God. A willful person receives their power from themselves. We call it will power. One of the real advantages to being willing before God is that the willing spirit opens us up to God’s presence and power.

 

If we are open, the Spirit can give us an energy that is not our own, an energy, where, while there is effort on our part, the task is not nearly as difficult as if we did it on our own. This is the relationship between grace and free will, between God’s activity and our human cooperation. The invitation for us is always to surrender to God and let go. If we let God do it within us, our task becomes simply to cooperate with God’s grace, with God’s power, to be willing before God.  

 

As we observe ourselves, we realize that on some days we are willing before God while on other days or later the same day we are willful apart from God. We often go back and forth between being willing and willful. The spiritual challenge is to ask for and open up to God’s grace in our lives.

 

The surrender that is needed to be willing before God is captured in the following “Prayer of Abandonment” by Charles de Foucauld:

“Father, I abandon myself into your hands; Do with me what you will.  Whatever you may do, I thank you, I am ready for all, I accept all.  Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures—I wish no more than this, O Lord. 

 

“Into your hands I commend my soul; I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands, without reserve, and with boundless confidence.  For you are my Father.”

 

We can easily replace the word “myself” and all the related words with any of the following:  “my desire to control,” “my independence,” “my self-absorption,” “my self-centeredness,” etc.