Augustine

I once heard Dr. Beebe, the president of Spring Arbor University, say that everyone should have an intellectual hero, someone from the past with whom you can identify. I have approximately 347 such people. Granted, they're all dead, but their words sure aren't. From week to week different people jump out at me, depending on the phase of the spiritual journey. Right now it is Augustine. I really can't communicate in words the intensity of the resonance that occurs in these chambers of my soul when I read his words. In his Confessions, his autobiography, Augustine shares the story of his conversion. I'm going to string together the parts that are speaking loudly tonight:

"My inner self was a house divided against itself. The mind gives an order to the body and is at once obeyed, but when it gives an order to itself, it is resisted...Why does this happen? The mind orders itself to make an act of will, and it would not give this order unless it willed to do so; yet it does not carry out its own command...The reason, then, why the command is not obeyed is that it is not given with the full will...It is a disease of the mind which does not wholly rise to the heights where it is lifted by the truth, because it is weighed down by habit.

When I was trying to reach a decision about serving the Lord my God, as I had long intended to do, it was I who willed to take this course and again it was I who willed not to take it. It was I and I alone. But I neither willed to do it nor refused to do it with my full will. So I was at odds with myself. I was throwing myself into confusion. All this happened to me although I did not want it, but it did prove that there was some second mind in me besides my own...It is the same soul that wills both, but it wills neither of them with the full force of the will. So it is wrenched in two and suffers great trials because while truth teaches it to prefer one course, habit prevents it from relinquishing the other.

This was the nature of my sickness. I was in torment, reproaching myself more bitterly than ever as I twisted and turned in my chain. I hoped that my chain might be broken once and for all, because it was only a small thing that held me now. All the same it held me. In my heart I kept saying, "Let it be now, let it be now!", and merely by saying this I was on the brink of resolution. I stood on the brink of the resolution, waiting to take fresh breath...I held back from the step by which I should die to death and become alive to life...And the closer I came to the moment which was to mark the great change in me, the more I shrank from it in horror. But it did not drive me back or turn me from my purpose: it merely left me hanging in suspense...I was held back by all my old attachments. They plucked at my garment of flesh and whispered, "Are you going to dismiss us? From this moment we shall never be with you again, for ever and ever."...Their mutterings seemed to reach me from behind, trying to make me turn my head when I wanted to go forward. Yet, in my state of indecision, they kept me from tearing myself away, from shaking myself free of them and leaping across the barrier to the other side where you were calling me. Habit was too strong for me when it asked, "Do you think you can live without these things?"...On the other side I could see Continence in all her serence, unsullied joy, as she modestly bechoned me to cross over and to hesitate no more..."Why do you try to stand in your own strength and fail? Cast yourself upon God and have no fear. He will not shrink away and let you fall. Cast yourself upon him without fear, for he will welcome you and cure you of your ills."

I probed the hidden depths of my soul and wrung its pitiful secrets from it, and when I mustered them all before the eyes of my heart, a great storm broke within me...For I felt that I was still the captive of my sins, and in misery I kept crying, "How long shall I go on saying, 'Tomorrow, tomorrow'? Why not now?"

(At this point, Augustine tells how he heard a voice telling him to read Romans 13:13-14, at which point he surrendered to God)

"For in an instant, as I came to the end of the sentence, it was as though the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled."

Yes, yes, yes. Can't you just feel the intensity of the battle? Anyone who has ever wrestled with God knows exactly what this battle feels like. Augustine's conversion happened in the year 386 A.D., and yet his story is so true of me today. The battle is raging and much is at stake. Surrender is so hard when doubt beckons! Again, anyone who has ever experienced the insidious suggestions of doubt knows exactly how hard it can be to break free. See, there is a difference between an atheist and an honest doubter. As far as I can tell, atheists do not want to believe. Seekers want to believe. Seekers see the love and joy and hope that is in the lives of Jesus-followers, and want it. This difference makes all the difference.