Wednesday 9 November 2011

The role of the will in spiritual formation

As I start my day today, I am reminded of words of Dallas Willard in his excellent book on spiritual formation by the title, 'Renovation of the Heart'. Dr. Willard points out that there are six basic aspects of human life, namely, thought (images, concepts, judgments, inferences); feeling (sensation, emotion); choice (will, decision, character); the body (action, interaction with the physical world); a social context (personal relations with others); and our soul (the factor that integrates all of the above).

The ideal of the spiritual life in Christian understanding is where all of the essential parts of the human self are effectively organized around God, as they are restored and sustained by Him. It is above all the spirit or will, that must be reached, cared for, and transformed in spiritual formation. The human will is primarily what must be given a godly nature, and this must then expand its governance over the entire personality. What we think and feel is a matter of choice. We should be very careful what we allow our minds to dwell on and what we allow ourselves to feel. The function of the will/heart is to organize our life around God.

The will is often at the mercy of the forces playing upon it from other aspects of the self and beyond. The God-intended function of the will is to reach out to him in trust. By standing in the correct relation to God through our will, we can receive grace that will properly reorder the soul along with the other five components of the self.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for my life and the gift of the six basic aspects of my life. I pray that you would enable me to constantly align my will to your perfect will and enable it it expand its governance over my entire personality, so that day by day, I may grow to be more like my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in whose name I pray. Amen. 

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