At this point God taught me another important lesson: He would do for me what I could not do for myself, but He would not do for me what He required me to do for myself. God had responded to my cry and delivered me from the spirit of heaviness, but after that He held me responsible to exercise scriptural discipline over my own thoughts.

How do I know the will of God? Where is the will of God revealed? The answer is in His Word. The great revelation of the will of God is the Word of God. And the Word of God is packed from beginning to end with divine promises.

The decision that the man was to marry proceeded from God, not from the man.

2 Chronicles 20:12 NIV) Here are the key phrases: "...we have no power...we do not know what to do..." So they had to turn to God for supernatural help and they knew the way to turn. They renounced the natural to invoke the supernatural.

The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. Psalm 25:14.

Lord, I realize that I have tended toward the independence described in this chapter. Before I go one step further, I want to settle this issue with You. I repent, and I ask Your forgiveness for having this "boastful pride of life"—this tendency to seek independence from You and Your plans for me. I want to reverse that now. Lord, I make this declaration to You: By Your grace, I will live from now on in willing dependence upon You. Amen.

When this happens, something "clicks" within you, and you know you have found what you were created to do. It is an instinctive, gut-level, spiritual experience. You'll know it when you see, hear and feel it.

In other words, God is working out what we have committed to Him. It is the continuing attitude of trust on our part that keeps the channel open through which God is able to intervene in our lives and work out what needs to be done. But if we abandon our trust, we close off the channel and hinder the completion of what God has begun to do for us.

Once you have placed your body on God's altar in total surrender, your body no longer belongs to you. It belongs to God. You no longer decide what happens to your body. God does. You do not determine what kind of job you are going to do with your body. God does. You do not choose where you are going to live. God does. But it is wonderful when He takes the responsibility.

When you commit yourself to God's will without reservation, God becomes responsible to provide for you.

When you think about renouncing your own will and embracing the will of God, let me suggest you bear three truths in mind. First of all, God loves you more than you love yourself. Second, God understands you better than you understand yourself. And third, God wants only the best for you. When you truly yield to God's will, you will discover that it is what the Bible says it is: "good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2).

When God grabs you by the scruff of the neck then although theoretically you have a freedom to say 'no', in another sense, actually, you can't say no because it's like Jeremiah. 'God, you have cheated me. You called me to be a prophet against the people that I love, and all that I proclaim is words of doom and judgement.' And yet if I say I will shut up, I can't.