Isaiah 50:7-9 For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint… The happiest of gifts for a man to be born with is strength of will; not that a man can by it avoid suffering and sin; but for this — that suffering especially raises and heightens the strong will; that when it forsakes sin it forsakes it without a sigh. Happiness within, attractiveness towards others, ease of repentance and amendment, firmness against opposition, are the splendid dower which the strong will brings to the soul. It is our wisdom then to ask, How shall we keep or make our wills strong? 1. We cannot do this merely by persisting in having our own way, as we call it. Our own way may be wrong; and no one ever uses the strength in connection with crime or fault — never calls a sinful, a wilful, a violent man a strong man. The reason is evident, namely, that wilful sinning is only using a will in the direction in which it is easiest to use it. And this cannot make the will stronger, any more than a mind would grow strong, which employed itself only on intellectual work which presented no difficulty to it. The will must make progress by avoiding things to which it is prone, and by aiming at things which it simply knows in any way to be good, although for the time being it may be that they are not fully desired. 2. There are times when there rises before us a noble ideal of what we ought to be, and we feel an impulse to believe we might be. What is that ideal? It is the "will of God concerning us." It is what we may each become by the power of the Spirit of God. Into this ideal we cannot at once pass. But we can be ever approaching it. It is not in human nature to make that sudden change, but it is perfectly possible to make a beginning. And for this purpose we must call in the aid of that very will itself to act upon our will; for there is no power in us higher, more primary, than the will. If the will is to be affected, the will itself must do the work. Suppose one resolve be made; then here at once our will begins to be of constant use to us, and to grow stronger in itself. Our will is not really acting at all when it is working out, however strongly, a natural inclination. The will is only strengthened when it is set to active work, something which we have clearly seen to be our duty, although when we come to do it we find the pursuit of it tax our strength exceedingly. (Archbishop Benson, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. |
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