Another quote from Dr. Willard:

“Thus God permits there to be a world such as we live in, where the wills of human beings are often set on what is evil, wrong, or foolish and where even good and wise inclinations are frequently defeated by other components of the persons involved: the “sin in our members,” social influences, mistaken ideas, overwhelming feelings, or disconnections and ruptures in the depths of the soul. The outcome may be a whole person (or even a whole society) intently focused on accomplishing evil, or it may be a person (or society) baffled and torn by the chaos and evil it finds within itself – as is the “modern liberal” person and society of today.

Renovation of the Heart. Page 147

It is a great mystery as to why God chose to create this world in the way that He did. Consider, in all of the universe as we know it, the planet earth may be the only place in all of creation where God allows creatures to say “No” to His rule. And we say it a lot. At the most, we can surmise that God created us for free, loving response to His love. And God does not appear ready to overwhelm, or overpower, our freedom. The result is that we live in this world where ““sin in our members,” social influences, mistaken ideas, overwhelming feelings, or disconnections and ruptures in the depths of the soul” shape us and our culture into what we read about in our daily newspaper, or see on the TV news. And the problems is not only ‘out there,’ the problems are within us, also.

The crux of the problem lies in the our hearts(or wills). In Matthew 7:16 Jesus says, “You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit,  but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit…” Our hearts need to be renewed by the grace of God. We may stop ourselves from acting on some ‘bad inclination” that arises in our minds and feelings. But the inclination is still there.

So, basic prayer to start out:

Lord, fix my heart! Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.”

David