Very Unwillingly
#80
Friend,
Very unwillingly.
Have you ever gone somewhere, and you didn’t really feel like it, but you went very unwillingly? I’m sure you have.
I’m not talking about being forced to do something against your will. I’m talking about doing something that you value, but you don’t feel like doing it when it gets here.
You value seeing your cousins, but you don’t know if you have the energy for the one-hour drive.
You value dressing up and going on a date, but you just got home, and sitting on the couch is giving you second and third thoughts.
You value going to church, but you haven’t gotten to sleep in at all in the past two weeks, and it is raining outside.
John had valued his faith throughout his life. He learned it from a young age, took it very seriously, and spent considerable time and energy to be a good Christian. The only problem was that it hadn’t clicked. There was a gap between what he believed about God and what he had experienced with God.
He was invited to a Bible study on the book of Romans one evening. It was an ordinary evening, on an ordinary day in May, and he didn’t want to go, but he didn’t let that feeling dictate his decision. And so on this 24th day in May in 1738, John Wesley “went very unwillingly to a society (a church community) in Aldersgate Street.”
In his journal, he writes about his experience. “About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
Throughout my time as a Pastor, we focus on his heart being “strangely warmed,” and I hope all of us receive this gift of assurance and intimacy with a God who loves us and is with us.
But to me today, the word for the weary is “very unwillingly.” God can do amazing things when we are still faithful especially when we are going “very unwillingly.” (Again, this is about things we value, not about being forced to go against our values!). It is when I take the next faithful step into my relationships with myself, with others, and with God even and especially when I don’t feel like it that God often does his most powerful and holy work.
Love,
Aaron