Who's Will Be Done Now?

Will:  Mental powers manifested as wishing, choosing, desiring, or intending.

Willpower:  The unwavering strength to carry out one's wishes.

I am confused to this day when the concepts of "will" and "willpower" appear in our literature.  (Here's a fun fact: willpower only appears 6 times but will shows up 560 times.  I realize this is deceptive: most of the references are of the future tense as in "if you share one more time I will scream" but that's still a lot of references.)  To me will means What I Want.  If I turn my life and my will over to God that means I'm not in control of what happens and, more significantly, I think, I should give up all the wanting and wishing and desiring and grasping.  The practical example is waking up to a flat tire on my car.  I wouldn't be very upset about that.  I'd take action to fix it or, more plausibly, get someone else to fix it.  But am I comfortable relinquishing my desire to never have a flat tire ever again?  No, sir, I am not.

It is when we try to make our will conform with God's will that we began to use it rightly.  Our whole trouble had been the misuse of willpower.  We had tried to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God’s intention for us.

At no time had we asked what God's will was for us; instead we had been telling him what it ought to be.

The following category is called "Gimme Gimme Gimme." Thou mayst take thy will and stuffeth it where the sun shineth not.

We had not even prayed rightly.  We had always said “Grant me my wishes” instead of “Your will be done.” 

We consider our plans for the day.  Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.

We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only.  We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped.  We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends.

Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision.  We relax and take it easy.  We don’t struggle.  We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.

As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.

This, of course, is the process by which instinct and logic always seek to bolster egotism, and so frustrate spiritual development.