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.
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