Healing What You Can't EraseSample

THE WILL AND THE POWER

Most, if not all of us, have devastation, trauma, or tragedy in our past, and as much as we might wish to, we can’t erase it from our life story. But we can find healing for it. The pivotal question is, how? For example, could we stir up enough willpower within ourselves to make ourselves get past what happened?

In Romans 7, we’re presented with Paul’s fight between knowing what is right and being unable to follow through with action. In verse 15, Paul says, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” In other words, Paul had the will but not the power to do what he wanted to do.

Likewise, what we need isn’t more desire, effort, or information—more behavior modification. What we need is the power of the Holy Spirit to change our heart—something only He can do.

Heart transformation is the difference maker because it is systemic; it affects all we do and all we are. Remember what Solomon wrote? “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23).

Paul put it this way in Ephesians 4:23-24: “Be made new in the attitude of your minds [and] put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

To thrive in life, the transformed heart doesn’t de­pend on the external circumstances changing. Nor does it ignore the sometimes-devastating reality of life. Instead, it acknowledges a greater reality amid our pain and disorientation.

As has always been the case, unlimited power is available for God’s purposes to be accomplished in your life. In Philippians 2:13, Paul wrote, “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” And there it is. God gives us the will and the power for life.

How have you been striving to overcome suffering or loss through self-effort? What has been the result?