Simone Weil suggested that the Christian experience has been contaminated by her enemies such that we conflate the search for God with muscular willpower. The Bible promises that if you search for God with all your heart, then you shall find him (Jeremiah 29:13 and Deuteronomy 4:29), but this searching implies not so much willpower as an orientation, a leaning toward, or a pressing toward God with the desires but certainly not a checklist of holy actions.

God tells us to meditate on his words d...