Glory Be!

Every time you feel in God's creatures something pleasing
and attractive, do not let your attention be arrested by them alone,
but, passing them by, transfer your thought to God and say:
"O my God, if Thy creations are so full of beauty,
delight and joy, how infinitely more full of beauty,
delight and joy are Thou Thyself, Creator of all!
--Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain

Indeed, if we consider the

unblushing promises of reward and the

staggering nature of the rewards promised

in the Gospels, it would seem that Our

Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but

too weak. We are half-hearted creatures,

fooling about with drink and sex and

ambition when infinite joy is offered us,

like an ignorant child who wants to go on

making mud pies in a slum because he

cannot imagine what is meant by the offer

of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily

pleased.
--C.S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory

Temptation is not static.  You do not reach a point at which you have "faced them all and are done with that."  On some deep level, I think I believed just that, though; I believed it before the days of dreams and visions and transcendent seeing.  

It took a bit of pain and suffering for me to learn that temptation climbs the mountain of God right along with you.  Whereas, the temptations of the valley went by common enough names, the ones shouted by the preacher as he pounded the pulpit and then paused to let you reflect while he wiped his brow with his back-pocket hanky; later temptations--mountain climbing temptations--were more subtle and less frequently addressed in the average day.

The more you see the thrum of life, of God in all things, the more tempting it is to worship too broadly.  The more tempting it is to abort what is meant to be timeless with your desire to clutch it to your now.  Temptation to disrespect the seasoning time of Covenant.  It is a thing rarely addressed in our prophet-less society, and so a prophet learns it from God, much as did Abraham and Sarah...slowly, with a stumble here and there...but a prophet learns it nonetheless.  I began reading The Weight of Glory at just the right time in all that. 

Instead of giving a look at the old journal in today's post, I'll give you the text of the sermon that started (about that time) to have a profound influence on my understanding-albeit stuttering at first--of this prophetic view of life I felt invited to walk.  May it bless you as much as it continues to bless me.