Willing

So I must admit that often times I get out of my normal routine of reading the most important book in the world, The Bible. I get all of my instructions for living from that book. I get my Hope from that book. That book is alive, as if it is sitting on my desk, breathing in and out. That is a miracle book. And yet, I forget, I get busy, I get lazy, I go deaf, dumb and blind without noticing. I find myself, needing to be reading…. that book.

Unexpectedly, I have trouble opening the worn leather cover, touching the crinkling pages, reading the Words in Red, because of a falsehood that has settled on my mind, like dense fog on the coastline. The falsehood is that guilt will require me to pay some dues, perform some good deeds, work up some old-time-gospel-emotion — before I will be granted entrance once again into the realm where I may be comforted and instructed by the words in the book. So, I pray and pray and pray, hoping that God will somehow be buttered up enough, having heard my guilty confession, to help me. But in all of my blubbering, I hear something quietly spoken to my heart. “There is Life in my Words.” I deduce that I am being invited to shut up and read. I choose the Gospel of Matthew, chapter eight. A man with leprosy says to Jesus, “if you are willing, you can heal me”. And Jesus says, “I AM WILLING”. I think of those words all day. They are the words of a Lover that cannot be unsaid or forgotten. Three simple words have radically transformed my world today. I am willing too Jesus.

My imagination paints a picture of a gas station. I’ve waited way too long to refuel. I saw the little gas tank light go on and I ignored it. The gas gauge is below empty. But I was busy. So, sputtering on fumes, I roll up to the station and get out to face the pump. I begin to tell the pump how sorry I am that it’s been so long. I don’t deserve to have more gas. I am a bad gas manager. I read all the labels and signs on the pump, trying to find instructions about obtaining fuel for a car whose owner has neglected proper gassing habits. I find nothing. I hear nothing. The pump seems not to care – I wait for chastisement that does not come. I am in a predicament here…. I begin to do a little tap dance. Maybe performing will appease the cold, withholding gas pump.

This is, of course, a ridiculous little scenario and in no way am I comparing God with a filling station. But there is a lesson in it for me. It is the nature of a gas pump to give fuel. And while I do not mean to minimize God’s nature to that of a gas pump – it is His nature to fill us. And it is His nature to be willing. Of course – He grieves over us as we wander and squander. But it is not His nature to withhold what will give us power over sin and circumstances and self – what will give us Hope. Our enemy convinces us that we need to perform for God before He will hear us, before He will fill us again. My battered, misled heart is crushed by the quiet gentleness of His Words . . . “I Am Willing”.

~ by Barbara Wilber on January 12, 2008.