a battle of wills

I was standing in the kitchen a little while ago and, as I do most every morning, I was waiting for my tea water to boil. Instantly, Doubter came in along with his friends, Sabotager and Shame to visit She-who-must-be-obeyed. You see, She-who-must-be-obeyed has been battling against My-will-to-obey and She-who-must-be-obeyed is very very cunning and has a litany of excuses as to why she deserves whatever she wants… especially when she listens to friends, Doubter, Sabotager and Shame. They’re all bent on tempting her to listen and bent on destroying My-will-to-obey.

You see, My-will-to-obey is often weak and even seems to exchange places with She-who-must-be-obeyed when My-will-to-obey is not drinking from the fresh life-spring of the Word of God. When My-will-to-obey just meanders through the morning, very quickly My-will-to-obey exchanges the sweet fruit of the spirit for the carnage of the world and begins to linger on with She-who-must-be-obeyed. One of the ways Doubter influences this is to tell his friends Sabotager and Shame to remind My-will-to-obey that it’s never going to get better or that things will never improve or that the day is bleak and so probably, since things will never change, it won’t matter if the bag of cookies is consumed. For, if little or no weight-loss has been achieved, what’s the point in My-will-to-obey continuing working at healthful eating and learning to exercise?

And then it dawns on me (as if for the first time, but for the umpteenth time) …every day’s a battle—O, it’s not about cookies or whatever other weapon the enemy uses to sabotage our flesh- but every day’s a battle of the will to obey God or self. For in each of us is this “She-who-must-be-obeyed” self… and yet, when we put our trust in the LORD Jesus Christ, we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and by the Spirit we yield not to self but to God. I find in the LORD all I need and whatever self or the world offers or demands is by comparison: nothing. I, therefore, must be renewed daily in the spirit of my mind that I do not that which “She-who-must-be-obeyed” would do but rather that which is pleasing to the LORD—that which is led of the LORD— who is my all in all… my-will-to-obey.

Excerpts of Romans 7.6-25

But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.

For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”

I did not eat the cookies Doubter offered to She-who-must-be-obeyed.