The process for our decision-making—how to act and how to be—surely must be involved and multifaceted. Sometimes we seem to find our choices from outside ourselves, and sometimes from within ourselves.  At times the external guide and the internal one are largely aligned. A personal physician might say, “If you lose twenty pounds, you would enjoy a major improvement in health.” In some cases, one would resist that external guidance, but sometimes such a goal aligns perfectly with one’s inner drive. A passion for fitness stirs in the heart.

The longest Psalm is 119. It is a rolling poem extolling the beauty and wonder of the external influence of the Law of Moses. The poet is thankful to the core for the gift of God’s precepts, commandments, decrees, ordinances, and statutes. The psalmist uses these and more names for the components of the law and applies dozens of descriptions of the joy and benefit they bring.

103           How sweet are your words to my taste! *
   they are sweeter than honey to my mouth.

104           Through your commandments I gain understanding; *
   therefore I hate every lying way.

In this case, it appears the external law has brought about a deep inner congruence in the heart of the devout poet. The Psalms had been in use as the music of Israel for almost three hundred years when the prophet Jeremiah is moved by God to sketch a vision in which the agreement between God and his people would not be written on scrolls but within the hearts of the devout. Here are a few phrases from that declaration:

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors. …I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jeremiah 31:31-32a, 33b)

Following the ways of the Holy Spirit will come from an indwelling presence. One will not so much tack up law up on the wall for reference but find it growing within. God’s influence on the believer becomes more of an inside job. Our experience of faith moves into deeper dimensions when we surrender our hearts to be formed by God. In this process, our freedom to choose remains intact, while our hunger to conform to the loving ways of God stirs as a passion within. To complement this hope for transformation, let us borrow phrases of St. Paul from one of his letters to the early church (Romans 12:1-2)

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice…be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.