Who Can Resist His Will?

Early this week, in the wee hours of the morning, the Lord delivered me from something that had held me in bondage for over six years. That’s a long time. I had known during all those years that I was doing what I did not want to do, and I had cried and prayed and suffered agonies (very literally) during that time. I wasn’t in bondage because I wanted to be.

But in that early morning, one moment I was feeling the anger and frustration that I’d frequently felt during those years, and the next moment it was gone. I thought, "OK, I’m not going to question why it’s suddenly gone; I’m just going to be happy it’s gone," and I rolled over and went back to sleep.

I didn’t realize until the full light of day, and really not until a couple days later, that I was really, truly free. When you’ve been in bondage that long, it takes a little while to grasp the reality of freedom, and I’m not sure I have yet. I just know it’s wonderful.

So now we get to the part that we all want to know. What did I do to get free? And of course I can’t tell you. I don’t know. I’m pretty sure I didn’t do anything. Pretty sure God did it. Just . did it.

Unquestionably both the most amazing and the most frustrating thing about God is that He does what He wants to do. Unquestionably the most frustrating thing about human beings is that they can’t do what they want to do.

Oh, sure, we say that if we really want to badly enough, we’ll do such and so. It’s true that we can do some pretty remarkable things if we have enough desire. For all that, however, I’ve heard some amazingly determined and desiring individuals verbalize their frustrations at their inability to accomplish what they’d desired. Most particularly this is true of internal changes. I may be able to paint my kitchen if I want to badly enough, but all the want­to in the world can’t make me love cooking.

I know a woman who right now is in the process of making decisions that I can guarantee will cost her untold pain and misery. It’s possible that in the back of her mind and in the depths of her heart, she knows­or at least suspects­it, too. Just a glance at the paragraphs above, however, should be enough to turn the light on: she can’t stop herself from doing what she’s doing, any more than I could free myself.

"So why does He find fault?" we read in Romans. "For who can resist His will?"

Let’s look at the reverse side of that. "So why does He ever set us free? What have we done to deserve freedom?"

Before you try to buy your "salvation," remember it was God who made you subject to vanity.

Only He can cause you to experience freedom.

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