December 22

 ‘I must will to believe, and this can never be done without a violent effort on my part to disassociate myself from my old way of looking at things, and by putting myself right over onto Him.’ – OC

                When God calls, will you come? God’s calling does not always manifest itself in the form of a career change, though that is most often how we think of it. However, the calling is life changing nonetheless.  God calls us to draw near to Him and we must choose to heed His calling or to ignore it.

                This is the epitome of the dual nature of free will. Do we continue to follow the whims of our own will, or do we will ourselves to draw near to God? Following our own will requires little effort on our own part. Our will mirrors the natural self centered nature of Man when God is absent. When our will is our own, it is a self serving tool and nothing more.

                Because of the selfish nature of will, we must condition ourselves to draw near to God. We must bend our will to meet the will of God. In so doing we become effective tools which God can use.

                Faith is the result of bending our will to draw closer to God. God is not intellectual in nature. He is spiritual. If you rely on your own fallible logic it becomes illogical to rely on God. Who would believe that a man died and was resurrected for the purpose of the Redemption of all mankind? The first step in faith is that of willing ourselves to believe the truth of the Gospels.