You Would Think...

"You would think I'd know the way to my own castle!"

Words from that jugheaded prince in Ever After. I have nothing against the actor, but the character he plays is in my opinion a jughead, and since he's a figment of imagination, I don't feel that it is wrong to go on record as saying so.

I am a worse jughead. You would think, after seven years of being a Christian, that I'd know the way to my own refuge. But, apparently...

Whenever it gets to the point where the lightest touch of temptation is enough to set me off sinning, I know my heart has been wandering again. Wandering, wandering, prone to wander and leave the God I love. Oh, Lord, how I feel it! It's so easy. I miss a quiet time. No biggie, right? Wrong. I miss another. Suddenly circumstances overwhelm, struggles revive, and the old scar I thought was healed is inflamed again. So easily, so soon does my heart wander. You would think it was born restless.

Until it rests in thee, my holy sweetness! How rightly Augustine said, "Da mihi Domine, scire et intellegere." Oh, give to me, Lord, to know and to understand what radiance you are! When I can see you, I would not have the world on a silver platter. When I cannot see you, the world is all I crave. I want so much to be made much of, but what utter foolhardiness that is. Shall I be happy by living to myself? No, no, a thousand times no! I shall only be happy by living to thee, by making much of thee--how could I think otherwise?

You are a consuming fire; burn me. Scatter the ashes of my sick heart and bring the phoenix up from them, a soul pure and white for you: only, ever, in all ways for you! I am faint and dry; be my water of life. A mere brush of your light makes my senses giddy, but I have been wandering in shadows and I do not remember laughter. Subride, subride ad me, donec mea anima tibi ressurexit!

Oh, if there was ever gladness on earth, you were the source of it! And if there ever shall be light hearts in men's breasts, you will be the cause!