Daily Reading for February 12
So we are faced each day with the terrible temptation, the powerful pull of two forces: our need and enjoyment of goods that are of this world, and our need for the good that is not. We need both. For we cannot live by bread alone; we do not live without it either. How can we face that temptation?
Jesus faced it by quoting the Old Testament: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” We shall live by listening to all that God tells us. So attend to that craving in yourself that only God’s words can fill. The danger is that we shall not notice or we shall forget that the world cannot satisfy us. We overlook that craving that goods do not satisfy. That emptiness is only one desire among a multitude of desires, and so it may easily be thought to be insignificant.
But do you remember the experience of thinking that if only I had—a what? Whatever it was, you fill it in. And remember when you got it? How wonderful it was? Remember how after a while it didn’t matter so much and you wanted other things? Such experiences are of vital importance. They tell us about our restless heart, our craving. For we are tempted to forget the one thing that points us to God: our restlessness with all that the world has to offer. Only he can fill that void.
We must, in other words, forsake the world. This is what we must renounce before we can enter the gateway of a new reality and receive. To forsake is not to hate the world, or to reject it. It is not to turn from material goods—food, drink, clothing—and become an ascetic; for as Jesus said, “your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” It is instead to recognize that all this world’s goods are not able to satisfy us.
From Temptation by Diogenes Allen. A Seabury Classic from Church Publishing. Copyright © 2004. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org