“Be No Longer Stubborn”

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good? Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.  Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.  He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. He is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen.” Deuteronomy 10:12-21

Moses, in recounting Israel’s history since receiving God’s commandments, pinpoints their common and insidious condition: a stubborn hard heart. The root of their varied sins, this was the one to be dealt with ruthlessly. In order to meet God’s requirements to fear, obey, love, and serve Him, they must circumcise their hearts and cut away any vestige of stubbornness. Self-will must go, the Lord must be all in all.

And oh, how stubborn we can be. The flesh is all about self: my time, my wants, my preferences, my plans, my feelings. ‘Dare you not get in my way or interrupt my agenda, Lord. Dare you not offend my sensitivities, upend my schedule, quash my passions. After all, You made me this way, so let me be.’

The Lord bids us see another angle, and graciously provides the wherewithal to embrace it. ‘I made you, I fashioned you in My likeness to know fulfillment of personality and purpose in Me. When you willingly fear, obey, love, and serve Me, you will flourish. You will enjoy rich spiritual communion, My guidance, enabling, and sufficiency, abundant fruitfulness by way of the exchanged life. My will and ways for yours.’ (Deuteronomy 11:1-25)

How are we doing fulfilling God’s requirements? Where are we most resistant to His commands- in our spirits? Relationships? Duties? What callouses, what ingrained habits, need cutting away? When willingness replaces stubbornness, we will know joy, glad freedom, and the fulness of relationship with Christ.

“Have thine own way, Lord! 
Have thine own way! 
Thou art the potter, 
I am the clay. 
Mold me and make me 
after thy will, 
while I am waiting, 
yielded and still. 

Have thine own way, Lord! 
Have thine own way! 
Search me and try me, 
Savior today! 
Wash me just now, Lord, 
wash me just now, 
as in thy presence 
humbly I bow. 

Have thine own way, Lord! 
Have thine own way! 
Hold o’er my being 
absolute sway. 
Fill with thy Spirit 
till all shall see 
Christ only, always, 
living in me!” ~Adelaide Pollard (1906)

Lord, please dissolve any stubbornness in my heart, circumcise it to be whole and holy for you.