Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Confused desire

An interesting thought from Walking With God by John Eldredge that I read today.  It made me wonder...

"Something I read years ago by C.S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory has proven helpful to me time and time again, and may rescue us in the very moment of awakened desire I am describing.  Lewis is trying to show us that what God uses to awaken desire is not necessarily what we long for.  The things 'in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing.  These things... are good images of what we desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers.  For they are not the thing itself.'  They are not what we are longing for.  It is not that specific man or woman we desire, but what they point to, what is coming through them.  They are a picture of what we long for."

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