There is also the problem of our will. Even though our mind often understands the intention in our spirit and we know the will of God, we are unwilling to submit and obey. For example, consider the brother who decides to preach the gospel according to the concept in his mind. When he prays and the Lord gives him a feeling in his spirit to apologize to his wife, his mind has no difficulty in understanding this feeling, but his will is stubborn and unwilling to submit. This shows the problem of the will. Such a brother is not able to submit even to the Lord, much less to his wife. Thus, our will is another great obstacle. We may understand, know, apprehend, and deeply sense that the Lord wants us to do a certain thing, but our will refuses to submit and surrender. Our will is stubborn and hard, and we refuse to be softened, to let God break us, and to submit to Him. Although this brother clearly knows that the Holy Spirit wants him to apologize to his wife, his will is too strong, and he refuses to obey. Thus, God’s Spirit and life encounter an enemy and an obstacle.
We should not think that only brothers have a stubborn will. It often is much more difficult to subdue a sister’s will than a brother’s. There was a sister who once prayed, “O Lord, I know clearly that I should apologize to a sister, but I cannot submit. If she were a stranger on the street, I would apologize, but she is a sister who serves in the church, so I cannot submit.” This sister was bold in speaking such a word to the Lord. She even had excuses for not submitting.
A sister can argue and quarrel with her husband at home but sit with him before the Lord’s table in the bread-breaking meeting. She may even pray, “O Lord, allow me to pay my debt to You, and I will apologize to my husband later at home.” By doing this, she seemingly has a peaceful conscience. However, after coming home, she will refuse to submit, inwardly thinking, “I am willing to apologize to any brother in the church whom I offend, but I cannot give in to my husband. If I apologize to him, I will be admitting that I am wrong and that I have lost. How can I let this happen?” She can even have morning watch the next day, and her conscience can bother her in regard to her cheating of the Lord, but her mind will also tell her that it is not reasonable to apologize to her husband. This kind of struggle can drag on for weeks, even half a year. Because of her refusal to apologize, she can lose the Lord’s presence for half a year. Thus, the Lord encounters a strong obstacle in her stubborn and unyielding will. Our will is truly a great hindrance to God.
Some people are very weak in their will; their will is so weak that they cannot be strong. Their will is as soft as a well-cooked noodle, and others do not know how to deal with them. Even though a brother knows that he should submit to the Lord, he can be incapable of moving because he is not strong in his will. He may clearly know the Lord’s will but be unable to carry it out. No matter how much he is exhorted, he is like a soft, wet noodle that cannot be propped up with a pair of chopsticks. It is possible for a person to be clear about what the Lord wills when he is praying in his room but be unable to do anything once he steps outside of the room. Both a strong will and a weak will are hindrances to God’s life.
A will that has been dealt with is both strong and pliable. Being pliable is not the same as being soft. Being pliable means that one is not insistent or stubborn. However, when a need arises, one can be strong and bold; such a one is not afraid to give up his own life. Only a person with such a will can carry out the Lord’s command and act according to the Lord’s leading. A person with this kind of will allows the Lord’s Spirit to come out of him as life. Having a will that can cooperate with God is a great matter.
Furthermore, our emotion is also a big problem to God. The New Testament does not speak only of Christ being our life and of God coming into us so that we can live out Christ through the Spirit. The Bible speaks also of the need for our mind to be renewed so that we have the mind of Christ and so that God can operate in our decisions (Eph. 4:23; Rom. 12:2; 1 Cor. 2:16; Phil. 2:5, 13); the apostles who wrote the New Testament knew the intention of the Holy Spirit. They realized that without the renewing of our mind and the dealing with our will, God’s life could not be expressed through us. This is the reason the New Testament speaks so much about our mind, emotion, and will.
Second Thessalonians 3:5 says, “The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God.” This means that our emotion needs to have God’s emotion and that we need to fully enter into God’s emotion. We should love whatever God loves, like whatever God likes, and hate whatever God hates. Our feelings of love, anger, sorrow, and joy should be God’s feelings of love, anger, sorrow, and joy. Our likes and dislikes should be God’s likes and dislikes. Everything of God is ours because His nature has been wrought into us. Our emotion and His emotion have become one emotion.
We often have the Lord’s presence and feeling within, but our emotion has some preference other than the Lord’s. Our likes and dislikes are different from the Lord’s feeling and moving. Thus, even though we truly have the Lord’s feeling and moving within, we disobey this feeling and ignore His moving because they do not match our likes and tastes. Therefore, we move according to our own likes and emotions and do not cooperate with the moving of the Lord’s life. Hence, the Lord’s life encounters an obstacle in our emotion.
Although the saints should fellowship with one another—brothers with the brothers and sisters with the sisters—we often fellowship beyond a limit and are influenced by our emotion. A problem develops when our fellowship with one another turns into friendship with one another. Sisters, especially, develop friendships with other sisters through their fellowship. This is a problem related to emotions. Although the Lord may give a sister a clear sense to deal with a friendship, she is often unwilling. Such a friendship takes her away, and in the end, she follows her outward friendship while disobeying her inward feeling. This is an example of the Lord’s life encountering the obstacle of our emotion.
We need to see a great principle: In order for God’s life to have a way in us, we need to turn from our emotion, have a strong and pliable will, and be renewed in our mind. We need to drop our concepts and views, and we need to read the Bible and allow the Lord’s Word to renew our mind and thoughts so that we will think and see things according to God’s view in the Bible. In this way, our mind can cooperate with God’s life. At the same time, we need to learn to surrender our will to the Lord so that our will would be pliable. Then when we need to be strong, we will be able to stand up for the Lord. Thus, our will can be both strong and pliable, and we will be able to cooperate with the Lord.
Furthermore, our emotions and tastes need to match the Lord’s. We need to let God lead us so that our disposition is one with His disposition in order that we would have His emotions and tastes. Each and every part of our soul—our mind, emotion, and will—must cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s operation in us and with the Lord’s feeling. Then God Himself will be lived out of us. This is the best cooperation that we can give to God so that His life will have a way to live out of us. If we do not cooperate, our mind, emotion, and will will remain as obstacles to the divine life.
When we consider the problems related to our mind, emotion, and will together, we can see that our person is the problem; our person is truly an obstacle for the living out of God’s life. If we analyze this matter, we see that some problems are related to the mind, others are related to the will, and still others are related to the emotion. Speaking as a whole, however, all of our problems are due to our person, which has never been broken by God. We may have been saved by grace, but our person remains unbroken; we have never been broken by God, and we remain intact. Our self, which is our person, is a problem for God’s life. God’s life cannot come out of us because our person is an obstacle; our person hinders God’s life. In order for God’s life to come out of us, we need to exercise to have our person broken and shattered. The more severely we are broken, the more God’s life will be able to come out of us.