How often do you find yourself saying, "I will," "I want," or "I won't"? All three are generally the offspring of the same parents: willfulness and wishfulness. And when they are, they express a human determination to twist events into a pattern that seems right to us. Many times this human outlining takes the form of endeavoring to coerce others into following a line of thought or action that we deem wise; just as often it takes the opposite tack of resisting a procedure or proposal on which we hold differing opinions.

There is certainly nothing wrong with a right desire for a happy family, a gracious home, a productive livelihood, warm friends. All these elements of a well-rounded human experience, together with good health, comprise a sense of completeness to which each of us is entitled. How do we go about attaining them? Not by wishing or by sheer human will, but by recognizing that these are some of the things we can expect will be added when we seek first the kingdom of God. It was Christ Jesus who voiced this important point, so basic to the teachings of Christian Science. He said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." ^{Matt. 6:33;}

In the textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy raises the concept of desire to an exalted level. She states, "Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds." ^{Science and Health, p. 1;} How far removed from the mere human wishing for material benefits is this approach, which finds its fruitage in harmonious unfoldment of good! When we start by claiming our at-one-ment with God, the source of all good, and then fasten our gaze and our desires on the objective of expressing Godlike qualities in every thought and deed, we find that good unfolds in our experience in myriad ways and in a manner more beneficial and far-reaching than our own limited outlining could possibly plan or comprehend.

We learn in Christian Science that the daily, hourly endeavor to embody the qualities of God finds expression in better health, adequate supply, joyful human relations. To attain the altitude of Godlikeness and to receive the "added" things that become manifest in our experience as we seek "first the kingdom of God," we must forgo human will and strive to see God's will done.

As long as we strive for a human sense of health, harmony, or supply, they elude us; but looking away from them and making an earnest effort to express more consistently, and in ever-increasing degree, the will of God, the more we find these very blessings evidenced in our daily life in a form we can appreciate and utilize. Paul must have been referring to this state of thought when, in his second Epistle to the Corinthians, he stressed the need for "bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." ^{II Cor. 10:5;}

Now, let us take a little closer look at what I like to call wishful wants and willful won'ts. Don't we frequently confuse willingness with willfulness? And haven't most of us felt a strong urge to say, or at least to think, "Here is the way I have always known this procedure to be carried out; therefore I want to see it continue unchanged"?

Human will is just as forceful in insisting "I won't" as in asserting "I will." The two statements are in essence the same, since both may express the error of stubbornness. And it is not through stubbornness but through humility that we see willfulness and wishfulness dissolve and give place to the true willingness that enables us to say, "Not my will, but thine, be done." ^{Luke 22:42;} These words of Jesus are quoted by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health in a paragraph with the marginal heading, "The holy struggle." She says, "When the human element in him struggled with the divine, our great Teacher said: 'Not my will, but Thine, be done!'—that is, Let not the flesh, but the Spirit, be represented in me." ^{Science and Health, p. 33;}

Pitting one human will against another is far removed from the genuine desire and prayerful seeking to know and do the will of God. A stubborn position or stubborn opposition, each comprises the type of human will of which Mrs. Eddy says: "Will-power is but a product of belief, and this belief commits depredations on harmony. Human will is an animal propensity, not a faculty of Soul. Hence it cannot govern man aright. Christian Science reveals Truth and Love as the motive-powers of man. Will—blind, stubborn, and headlong—cooperates with appetite and passion. From this cooperation arises its evil. From this also comes its powerlessness, since all power belongs to God, good." ^{p. 490;}

Neither self-seeking desire nor rigid resistance comprises the right basis for motivating human action. Equally wrong is the tendency to justify them by what we like to call a reasoned approach, if that reasoning is not based on the prayerful, humble opening of thought to hear the gentle directives of divine Mind. The Christian Scientist who earnestly sets his sights on discerning in increased degree his true spiritual selfhood usually finds that human wishes, wants, and won'ts drop away as he recognizes his heritage of good as the conscious expression of the nature of his Maker. He sees that, in reality, he already includes what he rightly wants; and he does not want what it is not right for him to have. Nor can he be deprived of a single God-derived blessing. We should not entertain a wish or a want that implies the absence of good. Human will is a wall that blocks access to the good that is already present.

Abraham Lincoln many times spoke of his reliance on the will of God. In a talk with his register of the Treasury he said, referring to the Almighty: "I have had so many evidences of His direction, so many instances when I have been controlled by some other power than my own will, that I cannot doubt that this power comes from above. I frequently see my way clear to a decision when I am conscious that I have no sufficient facts upon which to found it. But I cannot recall one instance in which I have followed my own judgment, founded upon such a decision, when the results were unsatisfactory; whereas, in almost every instance when I have yielded to the views of others, I have had occasion to regret it. I am satisfied that, when the Almighty wants me to do or not to do, a particular thing, He finds a way of letting me know it." ^{The Religion of Abraham Lincoln by William J. Wolf, p. 156 .}

Let us relinquish and extinguish the human tendency to outline and direct the events of our lives or the actions of others without the guidance of divine intelligence. As we become fully aware that human scheming must give way to the divine scheme, we will be glad to cease saying, "I will," "I want," or "I won't" and to watch God's will unfold in our experience.