Finding God in the Mysteries of every day

Week 14 Day 6

Finding God in the Mysteries of every day

 Luke 15:13 There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. (The Message)

            I wonder sometimes just exactly when it was that life, the time God gives us to sojourn here on this earth became a commodity to be bartered away for the transitory and momentary excitements that can be had in this fallen world. Certainly Jesus’ parable in Luke 15 points to just such an attitude. Why is it that we so often succumb to the pressures of the “infamous three”, that is to say the world, the flesh, and the devil? Certainly the mightiest three, the Father Son and Holy Spirit living within our hearts is more than a match for the enemy.

            Perhaps the answer lies in the “harmonics” of temptation. If you’ve ever seen a singer, or a device emit a tone which reached “resonant frequency” with, say, a wine glass, you might understand what I am trying to say. Temptation has so many ways of reaching into our lives that sooner or later we begin to vibrate with the signals we are receiving.

            God reminds us concerning temptation that “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

            In order to recognize just exactly what temptation is then perhaps the words of Susanna  Wesley might be a place to start. “Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.”
                           — Susanna Wesley (Letter, June 8, 1725)