Lent: Day Six

Every time I fail, it’s because I sacrificed what I want for what I want in the moment. Which brings me to St. Benedict’s second step toward humility:

DO NOT BE IN LOVE WITH YOUR OWN WILL

Now, that sounds nice and proper. It’s good church talk. People are always talking about God’s will and their will, and turning their will over to God’s will and taking their will back from God and so on, but I don’t know if anyone really knows what they are talking about when they say it. There are many words religious people tend to use that have become more slogans than words. Words are a part of expressing a thought"they have meaning (or the potential for meaning), while slogans are statements that sound like they are saying something but usually don’t. Where words are a product of thought and often inspire thought, slogans think for you and inhibit new thinking. So many of us religious types us religious words as slogans"words such as faith, love, will, and even God. We use the words comfortably, as if we are certain of their meaning, but if anyone asks us to define them, we are at a loss, or find we cannot define them in a way that is satisfactory for ourselves, or anyone else.

So what are we talking about when we say “will”? The easiest way to answer that is to say our wills are what we want. So I give my will over to God when I surrender what I want to God. And I can see how that is true to a certain extent. Yet, my will is more than just what I want. My will is that driving force within me that determines what I want. It is not just a desire, it is a force. It is a part of my mind that is directing what it can control, and determines how I use what I am, what I have, what is in my control, or what I will attempt to bring under my control.

So when I talk about God’s will and surrendering to God’s will, I am not just talking about what God wants for me, but what motivates God to want for me. And I know from many places in my Bible, and from the teachings of the Church, that love is what motivates God. Therefore, love is God’s will for me"God wills me to both love and to be loved; God wills to love me because God is love and love must love. So when I am surrendering to God’s will, I am surrendering to love.

God’s will for me may be based on God’s love for me"God wants this for me, or this from me, because God loves me. But if I can adopt some basic humility, maybe I can see that God’s will for me is not just based on God’s love for me, but is based on God’s love for others as well. God wants this for me, or from me, because God loves another, or others, and is loving them through me, making me a partner in God’s will, which is to say, a partner in God’s love.

My will in it’s default setting is not motivated by love. I wish it were. It’s not. My will is motivated by self-interest, selfishness, greed, whatever the proper term is that captures the essence of “What’s in it for me?” It is often the will that thinks it has faith, or thinks it is trusting God’s will, but that asks “If I do this God, what’s in it for me?” It is the part of us that convinces us that we are doing God’s will, when we are trading God’s will for goods and services we want from God. It says, “I’ll confess Jesus as Lord if I get to go to heaven when I die,” “I’ll tithe my income, but I want to receive more back,” “I’ll give to the poor, but I want to be blessed.” But love is not love if it loves for gain. Love is love when it acts and can get nothing in return. Faith in return for salvation is selfish, self-interested, and greedy! Giving to those in need to be blessed or to receive more in some cosmic redistribution of wealth is selfish, self-interested, and greedy! Giving to someone who can never repay you, knowing that God may not bless you or reward you, but doing it because you would want someone to give to you if the shoe were on the other foot, now we’re moving into love.

So my default setting is to be in love with my own will, which is based on selfishness, self-centeredness, greed"to be in love with “What’s in it for me?” Humility does not ask “What’s in it for me?” but “How can I be of service?” God’s will is love, and the proof of love is what we do, not what we say, not even what we feel, but what we do. So I am not to be in love with my own selfishness, but to be in love with God’s will, which is love"and love can only be expressed and shown to be love with action.

There is nothing wrong with wanting things. There is nothing wrong with telling God “This is what I want for my life,” or “This is what I want my life to be.” But if I start putting what I want, and my motivation to get what I want above God, or if what I want is a deal-breaker"if God doesn’t give me what I want, then I’m through with God"then I am out of line, and I love my will more than I love God, and I neither be humble, nor a child of God. I am a child of greed, and the Bible says that greed is the root of all evil.

And this is how many of us pray to God. We present God with a laundry list of our own will, and then we grade God on how well he gives us what we want. If God should not bow down before our will, we get angry and decide that either God does not exist, or that God does not care, or that God is not good, or God does not love, not because God acts in an uncaring, unloving, bad way, but because we measure God’s goodness by how well he gives us what we want. And if he should fail to give us what we want when we want it, we go off in search of a new god. We are God’s children, but we shouldn’t behave like spoiled children.

So the second step toward humility, to me, means:

1) Don’t sit around not doing anything unless there is something in it for me.

2) Start doing things for others, regardless of whether they will do, or can, do anything for me in return.

3) I will give, and how others take is none of my business. Don’t let others’ response to my generosity of myself or my possessions deter me"some people will be grateful, some people will be rude, some people won’t even acknowledge it. How people respond cannot decide what I do.

Above all:

4) Don’t try to hold God hostage"“Give me this or else!”

5) Remember that God doesn’t serve me, but I serve God"and the way I serve the God is by serving the people God made in his image.

The most obvious way to quantify all of this is to simply ask myself in every situation: “What can I do to help?” or “What can I contribute to this situation?” and to keep doing what I am already doing, like praying for God’s will to be done in and through me, and all of the other things on the many lists of behaviors from previous days.

If anyone has any other suggestions, sock ‘em to me.