“If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land.”
Isaiah 1:19
To do well in our seasons, we need to have a willingness about us.
We need to be willing to change and grow in our season, so we can develop and advance to the next step in our maturation process. It’s one thing to start a season with a willingness to develop, but its another to continue throughout the entire season. To make it for the full journey, we have to be willing to take the turns in faith.
We need to be willing to grow together with other people. We aren’t alone in this world, but being part of a collective requires an open heart to include other people and learn from other people.
We need to be willing to endure. Know when it’s time to move on, but if it isn’t time, endure. Our determination to keep at something comes from a willingness to obey God and stay in His timing.
If we aren’t willing to grow, work together, and endure, we should go a bit deeper and ask ourselves why. When we know the reason, we can resolve it and be able to move forward. If an issue involves another person that is unwilling to change, we still have to be willing to let go. We can find peace knowing that God will keep working on them.
Here are some reasons why we become unwilling:
1. Self-doubt
2. Past hurts and disappointments
3. Feelings of shame, guilt, fear
4. Self-centered on my comfort, my ways, my opinions
5. Self-sufficient, controlling or controllable
6. Apathetic, no motivation
7. Irresponsible, neglectful, refuse to put in the work
8. Disagreeable, stubborn, rebellious
How do we soften and open up our hearts again? It takes trust in God’s love enough that we yield ourselves to His touch and step out to obey. If we’re hurting, He will heal. If we suffer lack, God will fill. If we feel bound, God will set us free. If we don’t trust others, perhaps we are expecting things from them that only God can do. Let’s look to the Lord.
Application: Perhaps you are open and willing in most areas of your life, but is there one place that you keep closed off? Closed to yourself, closed to God, or closed to others? God wants to touch that place and bring wholeness, but we have open the door and let Him in.