Don't Let your will be a victim of your heart

​If I had to identify the biggest life lesson I've learned, one of the things that comes to mind first is the reality that it is me who is standing in the way of me. It is and it always has been.

It is me standing in the way of the me I LONG to be.

It is me standing in the way of the best me I CAN be.

It is me standing in the way of the me God CREATED me to be.

It is me.

In her book, The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom tells the story of speaking about forgiveness at a church in Germany. After her talk, a man pressed through the crowd and approached her.

She quickly recognized him as a guard at Ravensbruck, the Nazi run concentration camp where she and her sister had been detained for concealing Jews in their home.

Her sister died in that camp.

The man said, “I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein”–again the hand came out–“will you forgive me?”

And she did. They joined hands and she forgave him.

Reading her story this morning speaks to me. What it says to me starts here: she didn't forgive the man because a feeling or an emotion of forgiveness came over her, she did so because in spite of feeling unforgiving, she knew she had to if she wanted to become who she longed to be.

If I had to define the biggest forever obstacle in my life, the thing that has stood in the way of me becoming me more than any other thing, it's been me letting the temperature of my heart have full control of the direction of my life.

Sometimes that is a good thing. When the temperature of my heart is love and kindness and compassion and empathy, it's easy for me to willingly do things that look like the me I long to be.

But when the temperature of my heart is anger or resentment or anxious or depressed or defensive or rejected, it is much harder for me to willingly do things that look like the me I long to be.

The lesson I have learned, the lesson I am doubling down on in 2024, is much harder does not equal impossible.

I now know how to moderate the temperature of my heart when that temperature has me on the verge of looking like someone I don't want to look like.

Pausing. Counting to ten. Writing. Prayer and meditation and deep breathing. A long walk. All of these things help me temper the flames of a dysregulated me.

An out of control heart fire almost always tries to incinerate our willpower first. Pausing gives us time to put out the fire and remind ourselves we are still in control here.

It is very difficult - quite honestly, for me, it's been nearly impossible at times - to be the me I long to be in spite of my feelings and emotions. It is nearly impossible for me at times to pause the way I now know how to pause.

But the last couple of years, I have faced this fact - nearly impossible does not equal impossible.

This year, I am committed, as committed as I have ever been, to helping my will remind the temperature of my heart that we're in charge here.

Life rarely goes in a direction that makes us feel good.

So I've come to conclude that life is much more about going in the direction you know you need to go in spite of not feeling good about it.

That's not an easy thing to do.

But it is not impossible.

The temperature of our hearts often want us to believe it is, but it is not.