Daily Laying Down My Will

One of the very things that I as a widow struggle with is the daily laying down of my will.  My mind stays wrapped up in what happened that I didn’t want to happen and what may happen in the future. This morning I was reading in the book HINDS FEET ON HIGH PLACES  and this is what it said about that very subject:

“As Christians we know, in theory at least, that in the life of a child of God there are no second causes, that even the most unjust and cruel things, as well as all seemingly pointless and undeserved sufferings, have been permitted by God as glorious opportunities for us to react to them in such a way that our Lord and Savior is able to produce in us, little by little, His own lovely character.

But the High Places of victory and union with Christ cannot be reached by any mental reckoning of self to be dead to sin, or by seeking to devise some way or discipline by which the will can be crucified.  The only way is by learning to accept, day by day, the actual conditions and tests permitted by God, by a continually repeated laying down of our own will and acceptance of His as it is presented to us in the form of the people with whom we have to live and work, and in the things which happen to us.  Every acceptance of His will becomes an altar of sacrifice, and every such surrender and abandonment of ourselves to His will is a means of furthering us on the way to the High Places to which He desires to bring every child of His while they are still living on earth.

The lessons of accepting and triumphing over evil, of becoming acquainted with grief, and pain, and, ultimately, of finding them transformed into something incomparably precious; of learning through constant glad surrender to know the Lord of Love Himself in a a new way and to experience unbroken union with Him–these are the lessons of the allegory in the book.

The High Places and the hinds’ feet do not refer to heavenly places after death, but are meant to be the glorious experience of God’s children here and now–if they will follow the path He choose for them. The experiences through which we are passing are all part of the wonderful process by which the Lord is making real in our lives the same experience which made David and Habakkuk cry out exultantly, ‘The Lord God maketh my feet like hinds’ feet, and setteth me upon mine High Places’ (Ps. 18:33 and Hab. 3:19)”

Darien B. Cooper/Hannah Hurnard HINDS’ FEET ON HIGH PLACES DEVOTIONAL