David Benner’s book, Desiring God’s Will, has a wealth of spiritual wisdom. I’m including summaries here for the benefit of my contemplative prayer group, and anyone else who’s in a similar situation of struggling with all the issues involved in establishing a regular spiritual discipline.
Summaries of Desiring God’s Will, by David Benner
Chapter 1
• Is choosing God’s will a matter of willpower, like making and following a New Year’s resolution?
• There is a difference between willfulness (which involves asserting our will, choosing something and following through) and willingness (which involves peaceful surrender). Some willfulness is essential to having life-giving discipline, but too much is dangerous.
The Dark Side of Willfulness
• An overemphasis on willful discipline can lead to rigidity and excessive self-control: an insistence on living my life my way regardless of others’ interests.
• Another danger is pride and self-righteousness, leading to intolerance and a lack of compassion for the weaknesses and imperfections of others.
• These aspects of the dark side happen when things like willpower, self-control, and discipline are given too much value and seen as goals rather than a means to an end.
Life-Enhancing Discipline
• Spiritual disciplines are ways to meet God, never ends in themselves.
• It is inner transformation of the heart by God’s indwelling spirit that matters.
• If a routine helps us get to the place where we can willingly surrender to God, great, but the outer routine is never the priority.
Exercise
Dialogue with God about your patterns of willfulness, and the motivations behind your disciplines. Ask God to show you what is life-enhancing and what isn’t (and to transform what isn’t).
Chapter 2 : The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father
• The prayer does not begin with ‘my’, ‘me’, or ‘I’ but ‘our’.
• God is a community of love (the Trinity), and wants us to be in a continually expanding community of love.
• We believe that freedom and fulfillment comes from self-assertion, from grasping and controlling. But in reality we can only become love through surrender.
Thy Kingdom Come
• In order to want to surrender our will to God’s, we need a love for God that springs from a deep knowing of God’s love for us.
• One area God’s love for us is revealed is in the plan for his kingdom. God’s work in bringing forth his kingdom is to overcome all injustice, all poverty, all disease, and even death; he wants to bring a reign of love to the world and transform all people and all things by love.
• Jesus’ call is to join him so that he can bring you to the Father’s healing love and grace, and so you can then join him in his work of bringing the kingdom of God to the world.
Thy Will be Done
• We are afraid to surrender because we trust the apparent security of the kingdom of self more than the apparent risk of the kingdom of God.
• True freedom and autonomy lies in giving ourselves to others in love, surrendering to the kingdom of love. This is not easy – witness Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. You can pray that “God’s will be done” become your deepest desire.
The Two Kingdoms
• The kingdom of self involves self-interest, grasping, effort, independence, determination, etc. while the kingdom of God involves rule by love, releasing, consent, interdependence, and transformation (see the differences on p. 44).
• The author finds himself going back and forth between the two kingdoms every day. Realizing that he can’t transform himself spiritually by his own power, he longs for God’s love – not because he’s supposed to, but because he deeply desires it.
Exercise
Reflect on how and when you live in the kingdom of self and when in the kingdom of God. Think about how you use your time and money. Don’t be distracted by guilt, as this just points you back to yourself.
• Ask for God’s desires and priorities to become yours. Ask for fresh excitement about working with Jesus on bringing God’s kingdom of love to earth.
How do you see Benner’s ideas relating to centering prayer, in particular your own practice or other spiritual discipline?
