The Will of God part 2 - Sittser

Here are a few more excerpts from Jerry Sittser’s book, The Will of God as a Way of Life: How to Make Every Decision With Peace and Confidence. (Zondervan, 2004). This book was formerly called, Discovering God’s Will.

Facing a Past We Cannot Change

Regret usually involves our own bad choices; bitterness usually results from other people’s bad choices. It arises when we become acutely aware that we have been wronged. (116)

Bitter people have a certain logic on their side – the logic of victimization. Victims are quick to draw attention to the hurt done to them . . . But being right does not make a person happy. Bitter people might be right, but they are also lonely. (117-118)

What is done is done. Regret, bitterness, revenge – none of these can alter what has already happened. No matter how many times we say “if only,” regret cannot alter our past. No matter how bitterly we brood, blame, and accuse, the wrong done to us will remain as it is. (119)

The one who suffers the most from bitterness is the one who is bitter. What infection does to the human body, bitterness does to the soul. It consumes and destroys. The antibiotic used to treat the disease of bitterness is forgiveness.

Forgiveness never happens in a moment; sometimes it takes a lifetime. Yet it begins with a decision. We must want to forgive and then choose to forgive, even if we do not feel like forgiving.

. . . forgiving manifests a willingness to give up to God the right to judge and punish an offender, to see that person as a real human being, and to begin to wish him or her well. (122)

Thus, even when the relationship is not restored, because the offender doesn’t care, or continues to offend, or disappears, or even dies, forgiveness works redemption into the heart of the person who does the forgiving. The act of forgiveness becomes a conduit for God’s grace to work in that person. (123)

Preparing for the Future

There are at least two unhealthy ways to respond to a lack of certainty about our future: fear and worry. (132)

The secret to overcoming fear is not to deny or dismiss it but to order it properly. In other words, we should fear the right things. . .

As we fear God more, we will fear everything else less. . . Blaise Pascal wrote, “There is a virtuous fear which is the effect of faith, and a vicious fear which is the product of doubt and mistrust. The former leads to hope as relying on God, in whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair . . . Persons of the one character fear to lose God; those of the other character fear to find him.” (134)

Worry is different than fear. If fear is like a raging fever, worry is like a low-grade temperature. It nags us, simmers in our souls, hovers in the back of our minds like a faint memory. . . Worry distracts us more than paralyzes us. It is like a leaky faucet we never get around to fixing. (135)

Worry divides us against ourselves. When we worry about what is beyond our control, we devote less of ourselves to what we can control. Ironically, worry keeps us from exercising the one power we do have over our future – the power to prepare for it by how we live in the present. (137)