Day 186, Evening
Today’s evening meditation is available below in audio and script formats. The audio version is also available for free download on the player.
Reading
“Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love him as they love their cow – for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort.”
—Meister Eckhart
Stillness
As your day draws to a close, spend a few moments in silence and stillness.
Commentary
The external world, so fascinating, so infinite in its variety, has us firmly in hand and thoroughly mesmerized. Lasting happiness is almost ours – over there, just ahead of us, right around the next corner. When we round that corner and find it has eluded us, something in us says, “Keep running! It’s just around the next corner.” Finally, our life becomes a continual pilgrimage around corners. Such is human credulity that even after rounding a thousand corners, we still say, “The thousand and first, that is the corner.”
If we believe that happiness arises only when some external condition is fulfilled, we consign ourselves to a perpetual state of discontent. For even when our expectations are fulfilled, sooner or later the little voice inside starts again, “More! More!” It is this habit, this almost mechanical fixation of the mind, that keeps us forever chasing rainbows, until at last we begin to suspect that the kingdom of heaven is within. (WLB)
Prayer
• for our capacity to suffer with others
• for the rights of children
• for the rights of women
Podcast Feeds
Abbreviations
BC The Belgic Confession
CAC The Center For Action & Contemplation
CD The Canons of Dort
CIB Church In Bethesda Prayers
HC The Heidelberg Catechism
NT The New Testament
OT The Old Testament
RP Ryan Phipps
WC The Westminster Confession
WLB Words To Live By
WLC The Westminster Larger Catechism
WSC The Westminster Shorter Catechism