Willfulness to Willingness

Description

On this chilly morning, I’m praying we notice the bridges God is already laying down in our lives, that quiet span between old self, new self… the unregenerate self, the regenerate self, between a heart of stone and a heart of flesh. I keep coming back to how “the space between the two is a bridge,” and how God builds it with us over time, so we can feel the holy paradox of the as of self: God does the deep work, yet we get to live it as if it is our own, like being handed the keys to a work truck we didn’t earn, then remembering, again and again, whose gift it really is. Some bridges look like forgiveness, because we cannot build bridges… if forgiveness is not part of the equation. Some look like finally letting your gifts become a “pass through,” so love starts to feel less transactional and more like the Lord’s hands and feet moving through you. And in the second half of life, the bridge often takes the shape of that tender shift from willfulness to willingness, a peace that doesn’t erase the world’s turmoil, yet changes what’s underneath it. Even parenting becomes a parable: we start as managers, then “eventually our kids fire us,” and if grace has its way they “rehire you… as a consultant,” those brief touch and go moments of advice that honor their own bridge-building, their own as of self, their own way of letting God move in.