I'll do it, but I WON'T like it!

How many times do I have this response to a simple request from Leigh Ann, or in an area that God wants me to change? After reading Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God, this topic has come up several times my life, as well as in the lives of several friends. In the chapter called "Inside Out," Osborne talks on the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and unfolds the concept of yielding. Besides the conjured image of letting the other guy go first in an intersection, he says, yielding to the Holy Spirit is a valuable idea and can be broken into three parts. One, remove as much static on our line with God as possible by obeying what we know. Obeying what we know always brings more light and less static. Two, have an openness to insight and help of other believers. The third part is the most important, and probably the most elusive to most believers: "Am I willing to let God change me?" Not in actions only, but in the matter of my will: how I feel and what I want. God not only can change what we do, but what we want to do. This is shown in Philippians 2:12-13, "Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." Osborne says that the first part of the verse came as no surprise for "Fear and trembling fit into my paradigm of spirituality well. Jesus had saved me; now it was up to me to work it out. It was my job to stay motivated, figure out what God wanted, then suck it up and do the right thing." Suck it up--I've felt this way so often. But in the verse, it says for us to work, and it says that God works. What's the difference? It seems to me that our "work" is nothing more than allowing God the access and total control of our lives to change us. Then, He will work in us to align both our will and our actions to fit His purposes. What a relief! Osborne says he started praying not just "Lord, help me do it," but "Lord, help me to want to do it!"

Well, this is a good start, but it turns out that our natures often don't allow it to be that easy. This is where we won't allow God to change us. Osborne says, "We're willing to allow God to provide us power, but we don't want him messing with our attitudes, feelings, and desires." I personally find myself wanting the authority to give God the attitudes that I would like him to change and to withhold those that I relish such as bitterness and rebelliousness. I, like Osborne, was "taught that one of the greatest signs of spiritual maturity is the self-discipline to do God's will even when we don't want to." He goes on to say, "When I find myself knowing what to do, but not wanting to do it, I'm no longer satisfied to obey with some sort of macho self-denial and hard obedience. If that's all I've got, God hasn't changed me much." He talks about the idea of a Prayer of Permission, where we say to God something like, "I know what you want me to do, but I don't want to do it, and I don't want to want to either! I give you permission to change what I feel and think about this in my life."