Augustinian Ponderings

If you've never read The Confessions of St. Augustine, you should.  The reason I am so amazed by Augustine's thoughts and musings is that they are still so applicable today, even though it was written around 400 AD.  Here's some quotes that have gotten me thinking. 

"It is amazing that I now love You, and not some fantasy version of You.  Yet I did not press on to enjoy my God.  My soul was carried heavenward to You by Your beauty, yet it was pushed back from You by my own weight.  I sank, groaning, into inferior things.  This weight was carnal custom.  Yet at my lowest, a remembrance of You lived in me.  Nor did I doubt at all that there was One to whom I might cling.  I was simply not yet prepared to cling to you." 

This is very true for me.  I want to enjoy God.  I want Him to be my delight, yet my own weight pulls me down to inferior things.  Augustine, in later chapters, acknowledges that it is only the Lord who can give him even the ability to delight in Him...

"I had caught a whiff of truth, but I was not yet able to feed on it.  I continued to look for a way to obtain sufficient strength to enjoy You, but I did not find the power until I embraced Jesus Christ as Mediator between God and humanity...It is He who called to me...Jesus mingled that food that I was unable to receive with human flesh. "

What an amazing testimony to the enjoyment and delight of God, found only in and through Christ.  God calls us to find our delight in Him, yet it is Him who gives us the strength, power, and means to do it...Jesus Christ.  Wow.