October 11th, 2019

Having to do something that you don’t want to do presents you with a few options. You can just not do it and deal with the consequences. You can try to get somebody else to do it for you and deal with the loss of relational capital with that person. You can grin and bear it, gut it out, and get ‘er done, which usually leaves you frustrated and whatever you had to do not done particularly well.

There is another way. Particularly if the thing you don’t want to do is what you know you should do – the right thing to do. In the prayer from this past Tuesday’s Almost Daily Devotion we asked God for the grace to “love what (He) commands.” Thomas Cranmer, the author of most of these BCP prayers, really liked that notion because the same phrase shows up in the prayer we’ll pray today.

Cranmer taught that what the heart loves, the mind justifies, and the will pursues. You can try to fake it till you make it, but your fake will not look like the real thing and you won’t make it in any kind of satisfactory way. What you need is a change of heart – a true desire to do what God desires. That desire doesn’t come from will power; it comes from God himself! This is what the Apostle Paul tells us. “Glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20) In another place, Jesus tells us that we do not have because we do not ask. So, let’s ask!

“Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” (Proper 25 – BCP p. 235)