Thinking--->emotions-->willing

Is there a connection between our affections and our wills?

Yes. We choose (will) what affects us most (creates affection/desire) ; what most draws or allures us. What moves us to action (will) is what moves us emotionally (affectionately) first i.e. we are moved into action by our emotions.

Break down the word and consider its meaning. It consists of two parts. Emotion = e and motion.

Willing ourselves to act contrary to our desires wears us out and does not last long term.

What creates e-motions?

When we behold something beautiful and attractive, we are excited and drawn to it. We are moved (affected) to act/action. Likewise, when we see something unattractive, we are repelled. This too is movement to action but away from and not towards something.

What about our minds?

But isn't our mind involved also? Yes, what we think (believe) to be most valuable is most desirable and what we choose (will) to pursue.

However, what is truly desirable (objectively) and what we think is desirable (subjectively) are not necessarily one and the same.

What we think is desirable is only what we can see as desirable. If we are blind how can we see that which is truly most desirable?

Because we are spiritually dead we are also spiritually blind. Our problem is the greatest beauty lies beyond the physical and is found in the spiritual. A spiritually dead person can see nothing of the Spirit. God, who is Spirit, must reveal himself. 

How do we know God is beautiful? Do we have any indications?

Just look around you. There is great ugliness and pain in the world but there is also great beauty. Everything beautiful about creation comes from the Creator and reveals something of him. Likewise, everything destructive that disfigures creation comes from our rebellion to the Creator. The creation is in bondage due to that rebellion. 

How do we behold God clearly who is beautiful?

When we see him face-to-face. But that is not possible in our present state so now we behold him by faith or "through a glass darkly." We believe he is who he claims and promises to be.

How do we know God's promises are true?

He proved them to be true by his actions.

And what action did God take to prove he's truthful and most trustworthy?

Even after we rejected God, he chose to pursue us and disrupted his world of bliss, by stepping into our world of pain as a man,

to pursue and embrace us in our brokenness and self-inflicted pain out of his infinite love,

allowing this to kill him so that he might deliver us and our world out of pain;

not because he needed to but simply because he is love and loves us that much.

The more clearly we see him (mind/belief), the more we value him and greater we desire him (affection/emotion) and choose (will) to passionately pursue him.