Last week, I flipped back through one of my favorite books (and an undisputed classic), "The Confessions of St. Augustine." Augustine was the bishop of Hippo and lived in the 300's (Way way back in the day). "Confessions," his autobiography, is his most popular writing and if you read it you'll see why. It became a significant book in church history for a number of reasons, one of those being his thought provoking reflections on life in light of God's grace and providence. The whole thing was written as a prayer to God and I highly recommend reading it.
When I flipped through my underlines and notes in the book, one of my favorite sections encouraged me again. In a world filled with truly beautiful things created by God, it's hard not to enjoy those things in an unhealthy way. Here's what Augustine says,
"O God of hosts, restore us to our own; smile upon us, and we shall find deliverance. For wherever the soul of man may turn, unless it turns to you, it clasps to sorrow itself. Even though it clings to things of beauty, if their beauty is outside God and outside the soul, it only clings to sorrow.
Yet these things of beauty would not exist at all unless they came from you. Like the sun, they rise and set... This is the law they obey. This is all that you have appointed for them, because they are parts of a whole. Not all the parts exist at once, but some must come as others go, and in this way together they make up the whole of which they are the parts. Our speech follows the same rule, using sounds to signify a meaning. For a sentence is not complete unless each word, once its syllables have been pronounced, gives way to make room for the next.
Let my soul praise you for these things, O God, Creator of them all; but the love of them, which we feel, through the senses of the body, must not be like glue to bind my soul to them. For they continue on the course that is set for them and leads to their end, and if the soul loves them and wishes to be with them and find its rest in them, it is torn by desires that can destroy it. In these things there is no place to rest, because they do not last... They are limited by their own nature. They are sufficient for the purposes for which they were made, but they cannot halt the progress of transient things which pass from their allotted beginning to their allotted end. All such things are created by your word, which tells them 'Here is your beginning and here your end.'"
This paragraph is so helpful to me. We tend to look to what he calls "lesser beauties" as an end in themselves, as opposed to a means to THE end, God's glory. God's glory is the big picture and the lesser beauties are just brush strokes.
Conclusion
I love words like these that remind me that if I try to make a created thing ultimate it will fail me. Yes, friendship is beautiful. Yes, nature is beautiful. And yes, other people are beautiful. But they weren't meant to satisfy me eternally, so they won't. We should seek to enjoy all the beautiful things that God made. He is pleased with that. But we must let them play their role. We were made to be satisfied by God, the greatest Beauty.
"The thought of you stirs [man] so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our heats find no peace until they rest in you."
Love you fam. Look for Why I'm Unashamed Pt. 3 next Tuesday.
Comments
roz
smell good
http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0
http://www.citipointe.com.au/index.php/resources/online_messages_audio/P10/
Another good book that I'm going through is "The pursuit of God" by A.W. Tozer. A novella, but it's impact is quite novel.
Keep pounding out the theology, "Gotta grow" ;)
God Bless.
my prayers goes out 2u in yo walk wit Jesus MuchLove J.B.out *14 24 34 TWWID*
Leave a comment