You probably experience, and you will certainly, if you are watchful over yourselves, that there is nothing more unruly than your own self-will. Is it not perpetually hurrying you to and fro by the impulse of various passions; and very specially of pride. It is so where religion does not rule, and it often prevails to rob the true Christian of the enjoyment and blessing of God. It is the seed of the Evil One, at enmity with that heaven-born nature which is the Seed of God in His children. It is the heart of the old Adam within us. And to it may be applied the apostle's words, I find a law, that when I have a will to do good, evil is present with me. Where and as it rules, men follow their own fancies and opinions; and make their own boisterous wills, plumb lines to measure the right and wrong of all that comes before them. If a man, instead of submission to, and compliance with, the will of God, sets up his own will, and serves it in his daily life, he exalts himself against God, seeks to live independently of God, and carries on that war against God which as to man Satan began in Eden, and has never ceased to carry on. Now it is the excellency of the Christian religion that it tames the impetuosity and turbulence of our proud self-will. It effects the highest and noblest conquest, when it masters the foe so firmly seated in the centre of our souls. It was the greatest lesson which our dear Lord and Master came to teach us, to deny our own wills. He promoted it by His example, as He says, I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. In his greatest agonies He said, not my will but thine be done. So He has taught us to pray, and so to live. Remember that it is the highest dignity conferred upon you, by your Lord and Saviour; and follow after it. Earnestly and prayerfully fight against that spirit of self-will that rises up so proudly against the will of your Father in heaven.
- text taken from Daily Bread - Bring a Few Morning Meditations for the Use of Catholic Christians by Father Richard Waldo Sibthorp