Desiring God's Will E-Book

David G. Benner

• Herausgeber: IVP Formatio
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: The Spiritual Journey
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 189

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Most people think of God's will as something to be found or as the receiving of guidance from God when making decisions. Too often, however, the problem is not that we don't know what God desires for our lives, but rather that we just don't want to do what we already know he wants. How might our wills be changed so that we become both willing and able to do what God asks of us?In Desiring God's Will psychologist and spiritual director David G. Benner explores the transformation of the will in Christian spirituality. He examines why our desires are disordered and how our human volition can be brought into alignment with God's intentions so that we willingly choose that which God wants for us. In so doing, Benner shows us that cultivating discernment and being attuned to God's desires is the path to true life, spiritual health and freedom.God wants to change our choosing, not just our choices. By aligning our hearts with God's, we will find liberation from the kingdom of self and instead experience the joy of the kingdom of God.This expanded edition, one of three titles in The Spiritual Journey trilogy, includes a new epilogue and an experiential guide with questions for individual reflection or group discussion.

Leseprobe

The Spiritual Journey

When applied to the spiritual life, the metaphor of a journey is both helpful and somewhat misleading. Helpfully it reflects the fact that the essence of spirituality is a process—specifically, a process of transformation. Unhelpfully it obscures the fact that we are already what we seek and where we long to arrive—specifically, in God. Once we realize this, the nature of the journey reveals itself to be more one of awakening than accomplishment, more one of spiritual awareness than spiritual achievement.

There are, however, two very good reasons to describe the spiritual life in terms of a journey. First, it fits well with our experience. We are aware that the self that begins the spiritual journey is not the same as the one that ends it. The changes in identity and consciousness—how we understand what it means to be me and our inner experience of passing through life—are both sufficiently profound as to be best described as transformational. The same is true for the changes in our capacity for love and the functioning of our will and desires.

The second reason is that the spiritual journey involves following a path. Much more than adopting a set of beliefs, a path is a practice or set of practices that will characterize our whole life. Following this path is the way we participate in our transformation. It is the way we journey into God and, as we do, discover that all along we have already been in God. It is the way our identity, consciousness and life become grounded in our self-in-God and God’s self-in-us.

Christian spirituality is taking on the mind and heart of Christ as we recognize Christ as the deepest truth of our being. It is actualizing the Christ who is in us. It is becoming fully and deeply human. It is experiencing and responding to the world through the mind and heart of God as we align ourselves with God’s transformational agenda of making all things new in Christ. It is participating in the very life of God.

This trilogy describes the foundational Christian practice of surrender, how this practice emerges as a response to Perfect Love, and the changes this produces in our identity, will and deepest desires. Each of the three books focuses on one of these strands while interweaving it with the others. Together they serve as a manual for walking the spiritual path as God’s heart and mind slowly but truly become our own. The Spiritual Journey trilogy includes:

Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality

The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

Desiring God’s Will: Aligning Our Hearts with the Heart of God

DESIRING GOD’S WILL

Aligning Our Hearts with the Heart of God

DAVID G. BENNER

Foreword byThomas H. Green, SJ

www.IVPress.com/books

To my father—Gordon Benner

and my brother—Colin Benner

who have both taught me much

about desiring God’s will.

Contents

Foreword by Thomas H. Green

Preface: Willing God’s Way

1 Ways of Willing

2 My Kingdom, Thy Kingdom

3 Love and Will

4 Choosing God

5 Will and Desire

6 Choosing the Cross

7 Developing a Discerning Heart

Epilogue: The Heart of the Spiritual Journey

Appendix: For Reflection and Discussion

A Four-Session Discussion Guide to Desiring God’s Will

A One-Session Discussion Guide to Desiring God’s Will

Notes

Praise for Desiring God’s Will

About the Author

Formatio

More Titles from InterVarsity Press

Copyright

Foreword

by Thomas H. Green, SJ

St. Ignatius Loyola, to whom David Benner refers frequently in this very helpful book, composed the first formal retreat in the church’s history, the Spiritual Exercises, in the sixteenth century. His small manual contains the classic rules for discernment of the diverse spirits at work in our lives, that we may recognize and follow God’s voice despite the many conflicting voices (the world, the flesh and the devil) that we hear.

While David Benner gives some basic introductory guidelines in his final chapter for the actual process of discerning, his real topic here is, as the title indicates, desiring God’s will. Before we can discern we must be properly disposed to do so. In fact, the whole dynamic of Ignatius’s exercises is to bring the retreatant to that open, listening attitude in which real discernment is possible.

David Benner, being both a psychologist and a spiritual director, has a unique perspective in assisting the contemporary pray-er to achieve that true openness which is essential for genuine discernment. As he explains, the real choice we all face is between “the kingdom of God and the kingdom of self.” He then explains the many ways that we can become trapped in the kingdom of self, and the many ways the choice of the kingdom of God is today countercultural. His numerous experiential examples, drawn both from his own life and from the lives of those he has directed, give us concrete insight into the challenges we ourselves may face.

Benner’s sources are truly ecumenical, in the best sense of that word. He cites many of the great masters of spirituality, past and present. The book thus achieves a happy balance of tradition and contemporary relevance, seen by recalling that St. Ignatius himself begins his Spiritual Exercises (#23) with what is known as the Principle and Foundation. He tells the retreatant that our only end is “the glory of God and our own salvation.” Everything else on the face of the earth is, and must be used as, a means to that sole end. Ignatius does not claim that this is an easy stance to achieve. The whole of the retreat is to help the retreatant to come to that disposition. And that, I believe, is precisely what David Benner is proclaiming in contemporary language: the challenging call to choose the kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of self.

Preface

Willing God’s Way

This is a book that I resisted writing for months. I thought I had written enough about willfulness and surrender. I wanted to move on to other topics. I started another book but was unhappy with where it was going, troubled in my spirit. It was clearly my agenda—the fruit of my willful planning and resolve. How discouraging it was to again be reminded of the strength of my lust for self-determination and control, my deeply ingrained preference for my will over God’s will.

I wish I could write about things that I have finally and solidly learned, things that are once and for all behind me. But my experience—and, I believe, the truth about the spiritual journey in general—is that past challenges and struggles are never fully behind us in this life. The route for the transformational journey of Christian spirituality is never direct. Typically it involves revisiting territory through which we have already passed, and doing so over and over again!

Doing things “my way” comes naturally for all of us. Egocentricity and self-control are fundamental dynamics of the human soul. We know we are supposed to surrender to God’s will and may genuinely want to, but most of us continue to face the almost irresistible tendency to assert our own will. We overhear Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane—“Not my will, but thine be done”—but have trouble honestly making it our own.

This book is an extension of ideas presented in the two previous books in this trilogy—Surrender to Love and The Gift of Being Yourself.1 Surrendering to God’s will makes little sense if we are not first convinced of the depths of God’s love for us. But surrender is far from complete, and we have yet to unwrap the gift of our true-self-in-Christ until we are fully convinced of the absolute trustworthiness of God’s will. Learning to prefer God’s way to ours and discovering our identity and fulfillment in God’s kingdom way demands that we know Love, deeply and personally. Only then will it be possible to choose God with the totality of our being, not just our will.

The problem is that when we approach the task of choosing anything other than our own self and its immediate gratification, most of us automatically turn to willpower and resolve. Choosing God then becomes more a matter of grim determination than joyful surrender—closer to deciding to cut back on eating enjoyable foods than to following our heart to the Source of abundant life.

Another problem is that when we think of God’s will we normally assume that the challenge is how to know it rather than how to choose it. The focus on God’s will is thus misplaced—limited to points of major decisions. We fail to recognize that our problem is not so much knowing God’s way as being utterly convinced that choosing God is choosing life.

While the choices we make can be very important in our spiritual journey, we shall see in what follows that how we decide can often be as important as what we decide. Willpower, determination and discipline are not enough in Christ-following. The close interconnection of will and desire means that if Christ is to have our will, he must first have our heart.

The starting point in aligning our heart and will with the heart and will of God is to understand the difference between our natural willfulness and the God-given gift of willingness. The first three chapters each explore one important facet of this difference. In chapter one we examine the dark side of willfulness and the downside of discipline. Chapter two then looks at the differences between the ways of choosing associated with the kingdom of self and the kingdom of God, while chapter three takes what we learn about life in the kingdom of God and explores how our willing and choosing are transformed when they are shaped by love.

The next three chapters examine what it means to choose God. Chapter four focuses on learning attentive openness to the God who is attentively open and present to us. In chapter five we examine how willing God’s way involves the heart’s desires, not simply the head’s resolve, while chapter six explores the role of taking up our cross in our choosing of God. Finally, chapter seven draws these strands together by examining the process of discernment—not just in making major decisions but in the moment-by-moment flow of ordinary days.

Learning to desire God’s will is not something we can accomplish by resolve and willpower. As we shall see, it occurs only when we live so close to God’s heart that the rhythm of our own heartbeat comes to reflect the divine pulse. Then and only then will we be able to truly pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Then and only then will this prayer be our deepest desire.

Perhaps you can identify with me as one who has begun to know something of the depth of God’s love but still resists fully surrendering to it. Perhaps you, like me, find yourself trying to co-opt God to fit your plans rather than submitting both your plans and your planning to divine willing. Perhaps you also have occasionally experienced the freedom that comes from floating in the river of life that is God but still spend much of your time swimming against the current. And perhaps you too find the battle for control to be one of the most discouraging and persistently nagging conflicts in your spiritual warfare.

Jesus is the only person who has lived a life of total surrender to God’s loving will. He alone knew the absolute freedom and fulfillment of floating in the river of life that is God. He alone can lead us to the release from enslavement to an autonomous will. He alone can lead us to the freedom and fullness of life that is in God. It is my prayer that you and I alike may learn to prefer his way over our way as we journey together in what follows.

Hamilton, Canada

Pentecost

one

Ways of Willing

Most books on God’s will seem to assume something I no longer believe. They seem to assume that we choose God’s will in much the same way as we choose to pursue New Year’s resolutions. I think this is incorrect and am convinced that the spiritual consequences of this misunderstanding are serious.

Think for a moment about the process of making New Year’s resolutions. First we become aware of some change we feel we should make—more exercise, more praying, less anger, less eating, more play or something along these lines. Then we determine to do the thing we are trying to choose, screwing up our determination and fortifying our resolve. In short, we choose things that are not naturally attractive by reliance on willpower. This, we assume, is just what willpower is for. It is what separates strong people from weak people, those with strength of character from those without.

Don’t misunderstand me. Bolstering our determination in order to do important things is obviously crucial for living. And doing things that are not naturally attractive is essential if we are to live responsibly. But what a tragedy if we lump choosing God in with things that are not naturally attractive. Is it any wonder that the thought of surrendering to God’s will evokes mixed feelings? Choosing God’s dream for us feels like choosing to take bitter medicine.

Thankfully there are other ways of choosing that are less reliant on willpower and grim determination. These we will examine in later chapters. Before doing so, however, it is important to understand the limitations of our natural ways of choosing. For until we realize the dangers of willfulness we will not be ready to embrace the life-giving freedom of willing surrender.

The Dark Side of Willfulness

I have always loved accounts of seafaring adventures—the challenge of men (and in some cases women) facing the worst that nature can hurl against them as they attempt to survive and reach their destination. They inspire me in my own modest efforts as a freshwater sailor, stimulating my desire to push the limits of boat and self but providing enough vicarious gratification that I’m able to leave the real risks to others.

Since I first read it as a child, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick has been one of my favorites of this genre. Captain Ahab is among the great strong-willed characters of Western literature. I have always liked him. Although I wish it were not so, I must admit that I share some of his stubbornness. But even if you cannot identify with him, he commands notice as a striking example of willfulness run amuck.

Captain of the Pequod, a nineteenth-century whaling vessel sailing out of Nantucket, Ahab is a man with determination of steel. “Old Thunder”—as he is known by his crew—is unflinching in his resolve to hunt down and kill the whale that took his leg. Nothing can dent his resolve, not even the mutinous intentions of his crew. He will allow nothing to stand in his way. With brazen bravado he challenges the gods to try to stop him from following his plan:

You’ve knocked me down, and I’m up again, but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come . . . and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? Ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! . . . The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run.1

Who is this man who makes his motto “What I’ve dared, I’ve willed; and what I’ve willed, I’ll do!”?2 He is every man and every woman—perhaps just a little more daring, a little more stubborn and a little more maniacally fixed on the ends of his choosing. He is willpower that is out of control. He shows us the dangers of willfulness when it is elevated to the status of the supreme good. He shows us the enslavement of a self-originating autonomous will that is unchecked by love.

My Way or No Way

In our choosing and willing, whether we recognize it or not, we all have a bit of Old Thunder within. In each of us there lives a two-year-old with clenched fists, gritted teeth and defiance blazing in his or her eyes. We differ only in terms of how much life this two-year-old still has and how she or he expresses that vigor.

You may have heard the story of the little boy—a bit older than two but still dominated by his inner two-year-old—who was running around the house in a fit of hyperactive frenzy. He was chasing the cat, jumping on the furniture, provoking his brother and driving his mother to distraction. Repeatedly she told him to stop running around and sit still. He refused. Finally, in exasperation—and with more volume and forcefulness than intended—she took him by the arm, sat him at her feet on the floor and told him not to move a muscle.

Crossing his arms, he looked up at her in defiance and said, “I may be sitting down on the outside, but I’m standing up on the inside!”

It is sometime between eighteen and thirty-six months of age that we normally first discover the seductive power of asserting our will. Most of us spend much of the rest of our life trying to relinquish it.

Willfulness depends on self-regulation, and self-regulation has its roots in the muscular control that usually develops in the second year of life. Anyone who has stooped to repeatedly retrieve treasured objects dropped by a high-chaired child knows that holding-on-and-letting-go is a game of endless enjoyment for youngsters. But it isn’t just play. It’s a laboratory for learning to choose, act and control. Bladder and bowel regulation is being learned around the same time. This is also the point at which the infant makes the first choices between willfulness as a weapon in the battle for control and willingness—what Erik Erikson describes as a relaxed decision “to let pass and let be.”3

Learning to assert our will is essential for normal psychological development. It is a basic part of human agency—that is, the capacity to choose, act and live responsibly. One must have willful self-regulation before it can be surrendered. What we are witnessing as the young child first discovers the power of the will is the development of the self and the capacity for choice, determination and action—all things that are essential to basic life competence.

In adults we tend to think of willpower as an admirable asset. We praise the person who can stick to a diet or maintain an exercise plan or spiritual discipline. We admire the person who resists the temptation to passivity in the face of tough challenges that demand action. We respect the person who can set a personal agenda and stick to it. And we judge the person lacking in this stick-to-itiveness to be lacking in character development.

But while the capacity to choose and follow through is essential for both psychological and spiritual maturity, willpower is easily overrated. It can have a much more malignant quality.

Malignant Willfulness

Think, for example, of Judas. Although his betrayal of Jesus has come to define his character, we must look deeper into his story in order to understand both this act and him.

Each of the first disciples responded to Jesus’ call to follow him for different and complex reasons. But despite the limitations of psychological analysis from the distant vantage point of the twenty-first century, it seems safe to say that Judas did not initially agree to follow Jesus with the intent of betraying him. Something went badly wrong.

Like the others, Judas was undoubtedly very impressed with Jesus at first. Jesus was different from anyone he had ever encountered. He spoke with an authority that made it hard to ignore him (Matthew 7:29). Something about him made you either love him or hate him—want to follow him to the ends of the world or kill him. It was, and is, hard to find a middle ground of neutrality with Jesus. But Judas easily knew where he stood. He wanted to follow Jesus. He saw in him the possibility of the fulfillment of the deepest hopes of his people.

To be a first-century Jew in Palestine was to live with an unavoidable consciousness of living in an occupied country. Jews typically viewed their Roman invaders with some combination of smoldering resentment and hatred. They longed to be free of their oppression. For generations they had awaited the arrival of a Messiah who would deliver them from their enemies and lead them into a glorious future. For those in whom this hope had not yet died, the present seemed to be the perfect time for such deliverance.

Jesus undoubtedly mobilized the hopes and passions of Judas. Even before meeting him Judas appears to have been a man of passion. Biblical scholars suggest that he may have been a member of the radical, anti-Roman, Jewish nationalist group known as the Zealots. At least one of the other disciples was identified with this group—Simon (Matthew 10:4)—and it is easy to understand why its members would have been strongly attracted to Jesus. Jesus clearly held promise of being the hoped-for “King of the Jews.”

It is probable that this hope became the focus of Judas Iscariot’s willfulness. Clearly, at some point the differences between his plan for Jesus and God’s plan became apparent. If he had not been stubbornly determined to pursue his own agenda, he could have traded his disappointment in his plan for the deeper hope of the will of God. This would have interrupted the spiral of death in which he was caught by that point. But it was not to be.

The willful, stubborn pursuit of his own agenda was likely behind his betrayal of Jesus. His hope appears to have been that Jesus would be a political messiah and restore Jewish honor by leading an insurrection against the Romans. If so, his betrayal of Jesus to the Roman authorities may well have been a desperate attempt to force Jesus to abandon his passivity. When confronted with imminent arrest, he may have hoped Jesus would finally shake off his lethargy and put his obvious talents into the service of political liberation. Or Judas may simply have been acting out of resentment that came from realizing that his plans for Jesus had been frustrated.