Short: serving the unknown god

Monday, May 29, 2017
Meditation:
    Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
    —Galatians 4:8-11 (ESV)
Quotation:
    The heart’s slavish and dogged devotion to its idol is what fathers of the Church have called “the bondage of the will.” This bondage becomes most painfully apparent in our lives when we earnestly feel the need of changing but cannot; when we are attracted to another value that for one reason or another conflicts with the desires of our true god—that value nearest and dearest to us. But our true god lies so deeply inside us that often we are not even consciously aware of its presence or of what it actually is.
    ... Robert L. Short (1932-2009), The Parables of Peanuts [1968], New York: HarperCollins, 2002, p. 90 (see the book)
    See also Gal. 4:8-11; Isa. 44:9-11; Rom. 7:14,25; 1 Cor. 10:19-20
Quiet time reflection:
    Purge, Lord, the idols from my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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