Renovation of the Heart, Ch. 7

This chapter relates to the role of feelings in spiritual transformation. Willard offers a lot of great insight about feelings, but very little in the way of direction. He qualifies this early on saying, "NO one can succeed in mastering feelings in his or her life who tries to simply take them head-on and resist or redirect them by 'willpower' in the moment of choice. To adopt that strategy is to radically misunderstand how life and the human will work, or - more likely - it is to have actually decided, deep down, to lose the battle and give in." Willard makes a case that feelings are centered on what we value. And, if we value anything higher than God, it will destruct us. There is something right about this. He ends the chapter with a plea for the reader to develop in "love, joy and peace" followed by tacking on faith and hope saying that together they will be one. His most practical advice is to acknowledge the feelings that we have, and offer them to Christ while desiring "better" (less destructive, more abundant) feelings for the sake of Christ.