"Have you ever had a crisis in your life in which you deliberately, earnestly, and recklessly abandoned everything? It is a crisis of the will. You may come to that point many times externally, but it will amount to nothing. The true deep crisis of abandonment, or total surrender, is reached internally, not externally. The giving up of only external things may actually be an indication of your being in total bondage.
Have you deliberately committed your will to Jesus Christ? It is a transaction of the will, not of emotion; any positive emotion that results is simply a superficial blessing arising out of the transaction. If you focus your attention on the emotion, you will never make the transaction. Do not ask God what the transaction is to be, but make the determination to surrender your will regarding whatever you see, whether it is in the shallow or the deep, profound places internally.
If you have heard Jesus Christ's voice on the waves of the sea, you can let your convictions and your consistency take care of themselves by concentrating on maintaining your intimate relationship to Him."
It always takes me 3 or 4 reads to grasp what he is saying, but this is so true in my life. I try so hard to do what is right externally, things like going to church, giving money to the poor, trying to be kind to people that I end up in bondage trying to be good enough through these things. Handing my will over to God sounds so hard, I was raised in an emotionally driven church, seeking that next emotion encounter with God.
But the truth is sometimes I feel nothing, no emotion when I pray and I'm learning that that's OK. Trusting Him is what is important, not what emotion I'm feeling at the time. It's knowing that He is there even when I feel nothing.
