Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear. ~Dan Millman
As I started to read the first chapter in James, I came across two verses I have not heard many messages on. James 1:3-4 talk about how faith brings about perseverance. The dictionary describes perseverance as steady persistence in a course of action, especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles or discouragement. That sounds like will power to me.
What made me want to blog about will power is a movie I watched called Fat Sick and Nearly Dead. It chronicles the life of a man who decides to go on a 60 day vegetable and fruit juice fast. He would tour the United States as he was doing this fast and tell people along the way what he was doing. He suffered from being obese and some kind of disease that made him break out in rashes all the time. His doctor recommend him to do this juice fast and juice, fruits and vegetables. As he was going around the country a common phrase that was said to him occurred, the phrase was: I wish I had your will power. I hear this phrase all the time when I share about my weight loss. The truth of the matter is that when we build our faith up we can get some mighty awesome will power. Now I don’t have a clue as to how religious this man was, but I will say he had some pretty good faith. He had faith in his doctors to make sure he was doing the correct thing. He had faith to go all around and ask people what they thought. He didn’t shy away is what I am getting at. He also had faith in himself to be able to stick to the diet. As time when on his faith increased because he started seeing the results first hand. The splotches went away and he started losing weight. He got so excited he started mentoring another man on doing the exact thing he did.
What can we do to build our faith and increase our will power? The first thing is keep communication with God. Pray and read the bible daily. It is amazing what you can learn about God and learn about yourself. It keeps you in tune with the Holy Spirit and gives you a fresh perspective and a positive outlook on life. The next thing is to do something you never did before. Change is an important aspect in our lives. If we just sit around and do the same thing over and over again, life gets dry. Keep surprising yourself. Another awesome thing to do and I think real important is to serve and love other people. Be a life-giver. Speak life into people, encourage them, build them up, don’t tear them down. Have a positive attitude in all you do. This is the stuff that gets the weight off you that Paul was talking about in Hebrews 12:1. So try doing some of these ideas and you will be blown away by your will power and also your faith.
David's Body Temple 