A Great Rebellion Against God

       It must be your great de­sire that God's will may be done by you on earth, as it is done in heaven.  It must be the settled purpose and intention of your heart to will nothing, design nothing, do nothing, but so far as there is reason to believe that it is the will of God.

       It is as great rebellion against God to think that your will may ever rightly differ from His as it would be to boast in His universe that you have not received the power of willing from Him.  You are therefore to consider yourself as a being that has no other business in the world but to be that which God requires you to be; to have no desires, to seek no self ends, but to fill that place and act that part which the divine pleasure has ordained.  To think that you are your own, or at your own disposal, is as absurd as to think that you created yourself.  It is as plain and necessary a first principle to be­lieve that you are thus God's, and are to act and suffer all in a thankful resignation to His pleasure, as to believe that in Him you live and move and have your being.

       Now this is the Christian's true state with relation to God, since one cannot be said so much as to believe in Him unless one believes Him to be of infinite love and wisdom.  When a man has that confident inner assurance that God's will for his life is the design of an infinite wisdom and love, it will be as necessary, while in the possession of this faith, to be thank­ful and pleased with everything that God chooses as it would be to wish his own happiness.  For what more could be asked than that every circumstance of life be the choice of an infinite wisdom and love?  Whenever a man allows himself to have anxieties, fears, or complaints, he must consider his behavior as either a denial of the wisdom of God or as a confession that he is out of His will.  To be always in a thank­ful state of heart before God is not to be considered a high plane of spirituality but rather the normal attitude of one who believes that "all things work together for good to them that love God, who are the called according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28).  If one cannot thank and praise God as well in calamities and sufferings as in prosperity and happiness, how can such an attitude be called a real trust in God at all?  For to thank God only for pleasant incidents in life is no more a proper act of piety than to believe only what can be verified with the senses would be an act of faith.
       (From The Power of the Spirit, page 22, by William Law 1686 - 1761)