Your will agrees with God, but in your flesh there is a nature that renders you powerless to do what you know you ought to do. When the Lord initially comes in contact with our conscience, the first thing our conscience does is awaken our will, and our will always agrees with God...What causes you to say "I will not obey" is something less deep and penetrating than your will. It is perversity or stubbornness, and they are never in agreement with God...The only thing to do with this barrier of stubbornness is to blow it up with "dynamite," and the "dynamite" is obedience to the Holy Spirit.
Excerpts from Oswald Chambers - My Utmost For His Highest: June 6 Devotional
That's what I need to do at times: dynamite my stubbornness (or more likely, nuke it. I wonder if Chambers would have used that imagery if he had written 50 years later). But it is comforting to think that the will, which strives to align with God is deeper than the sinful nature which stubbornly struggles against it.
I think that is why we need to dig deep into ourselves when we look for God in our lives: sin is on the surface skimming along, God is in there deep, waiting for us to come down and find the treasure buried deep within us. Jesus came and died to open up the white washed tombs of our faithlessness.
So today (and every day going forward) would be a good day to pray that the Holy Spirit pries us open and dynamites away the sin covering over our deeper nature which is crying out for fellowship with God.
Dear Lord, nuke me.
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