Willingness
When I was a teenager, a love song entitled “WILLINGLY” was sung and made popular by Crispian St. Peters in 1966. Young people loved this song, especially those who were falling in love. The first stanza of the lyric read, “WILLINGLY I’ll be yours/WILLINGLY I’ll wait for you/And all my love and all my life/I would give for you/Only you/Wish you were mine/Wish you belong to me.”
Oh, what a romantic and amorous expression of love and devotion. I was one of the youngsters who liked this song and was trying to understand the meaning of the lyrics completely. So I did some research and found that The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines ”WILLING” as ready and eager (to help), or prompt to act or without reluctance (to sacrifice). And “WILLINGNESS” means the quality or state of being prepared (readiness) to do something.
Have you ever done something extraordinary in order to get attention and love from someone with whom you fell in love? I had such an experience. I remember I fell in love with a young woman who lived quite far away in a small town at the foot of the mountain, while my college location was up on the mountainside. To reach her house and return to the campus, I had to ride on public transportation with limited operation times. After seven o’clock in the evening, the transportation would stop their operation. One Saturday afternoon, I visited that young woman in her home. We had a very interesting conversation, and then suddenly I realized that it was late. To avoid discipline, I had to return to the dormitory that evening; however, public transportation had quit for the night. I had no option, though, so WILLINGLY I walked a long distance by foot in the darkness and cold of the night. I did that act willingly and sacrificially, without reluctance, for one purpose: to earn the love of that young woman.
Jesus Christ Himself performed the supreme act of WILLINGNESS. His WILLINGNESS did not merely encompass His voluntary death on the cross, but rather His entire life was an offering and one of WILLING obedience to His Father’s will. His WILLINGNESS was a conscious decision to fulfill not His own will but the will of His Father, as recorded in John 6:38, “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of Him who sent me.” From the crib to the tomb, Jesus embodied WILLINGNESS; with a WILLING heart, He sacrificed His own life to save humankind.
According to the Bible, WILLINGNESS is a readiness to be obedient, a readiness to serve, a readiness to do what God asks us to do. God commanded us in Malachi 3:10, “‘Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.’” That’s what God asks us to do. What will be our response? Are we WILLING to be obedient and ready to do His will with WILLINGNESS?
This is a question to ponder and to be answered. What would be your answer?
Hiskia Missah
Editor
