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Have I Been Hard Pressed Between My Will and God's Will?


If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. 
Philippians 1:22-23

General Douglas MacArthur was the  Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. In one of the speeches he says, “By profession, I am a soldier, and take pride in that fact, but I am prouder, infinitely prouder, to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build; a father only builds, never destroys.  The one has the potentialities of death; the other embodies creation of life; and while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me, not from the battle, but in the home repeating with him our simple, daily prayer, our Father Who art in Heaven.”

There is always a struggle that we put up with the world and with the spiritual things. In this verse we see that Paul is wrestling with a dilemma. Paul's in jail. He's looking forward to standing before the Caesar himself. He is not sure which way the verdict is going to be rendered, and so he pours out his honest thoughts. These are the honest musings of a suffering servant of God. These are the kinds of things even Christians struggle with, when life gets difficult.

Paul is saying, I'm in prison. Life is pretty tough, but at the same time, Roman guards are getting saved. Christians are becoming emboldened. The Gospel is being furthered. So all of that is good. But then again, there's Heaven after this, and that looks pretty good right about now.

Now, Paul knows that God is sovereign. Paul knows God's going to do whatever God wants to do. The trouble is Paul has no idea what that is. He doesn't know if it's the Lord's will that he stays on Earth or goes to Heaven.

And look what he says in verse 22. "If I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell." The word "tell" is a very Pauline word. It's the word "gnorizo." It means literally "to reveal." What I shall choose I can't reveal. I can't really say what I choose. That's another way of saying, I can't say it, because God hasn't said it to me. He hasn't revealed it to me, so I can't really say which I would choose.

What Paul is saying is this: I want what God wants, but He hasn't told me what he wants, so I can't tell you what I want. That's tantamount to what he's saying. Once God tells me what He wants, I'm going to say, that's what I want. If He wants me to live, that's what I want. If He wants me to die, that's what I want.

And so look at verse 23-- "for I am hard-pressed between the two." We would say, I'm between a rock and a hard place. The language he uses describes a journey of a traveler whose pathway gets narrower and narrower the more he progresses on that pathway.

It's like walking through a canyon, and the walls become closer. So Paul is saying, I'm hard-pressed between two. On one side of me, there's a wall. And that is what I want in the light of my situation. On the other side is another wall, and that's what you, the Philippian church, needs in light of your situation. So I'm caught in a canyon of emotion between my will and ultimately what God's will is.

Whenever our life gets confining, whenever the walls of our experience close in, whenever options get taken off the table, that's when we struggle. You see, options ease our burden. The lack of options increase our burden. We become hard pressed.

It could be an illness. It could be the loss of a spouse, the end of a career, the breakup of a relationship, the death of a vision. When those things happen, and we feel like life is harder than it was before, and my options are fewer than they were, then we're left with a choice.

And we have to be careful how we go through such an emotional struggle, because our choices become critical. You see, it's an issue of our motivation. And it's good to ask yourself this: do I want God's glory, or do I want my comfort?

Dear Friends, it is not possible for us to have God’s will and our will unless and until they both go together. God’s will is the perfect will and we might/might not be comfortable with it. What ultimately should be our concern is – Is this for God's glory, or is it for my comfort?

God Bless you.
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Location: Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

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