WORLDINESS

How would you feel if your spouse, needing something for the house, went to the next-door neighbor and got some money? Or if your child, needing help, always went to another instead of coming to you? It would break your heart.

This is what we do to God when we go the world’s way in trying to meet our own needs. It is as if we are saying, “Lord, you aren’t adequate. You don’t know the best way for me. I’m going to have to get what I want by myself.”1493

A Christian should be in the world and yet not of the world. How can this be? Consider the fish who, though he lives in the salty sea, does not taste salty.1494

Imagine that you are in a round tower with slits in the walls used for shooting through with guns. Now imagine that you are whirled around the inner circumference. Would you appreciate the beauties of the surrounding landscape? No. But there are openings in the wall. Yes, but your eyes are set for objects near and do not have the time to adjust to distance as you are whirled past the slits. It would be as if the wall were solid.

So it is with earthly living. The near and earthly wall obstructs the view. An occasional slit is left open, perhaps a Sunday sermon or personal Bible reading. Heaven might be seen through these, but the eye which is set for the earthly cannot adjust itself to higher things during such momentary glimpses. So long has the soul looked upon the world, that when it is turned for a moment heavenward, it feels only a quiver of inarticulate light. Unless you pause and look steadfastly, you will not see or retain any distinct impression of the things which are eternal.

C. H. Spurgeon

Feathers for Arrows (Pasadena, Tex.: Pilgrim Pubs., 1973)1495