Only in Their Maker

Scripture References: Ecclesiastes 12:1; Philippians 3:20-21

Augustine once saw a beggar drunk with wine but enjoying himself. At the time Augustine felt miserable and hypocritical because he had to make a flattering speech about the emperor. In his Confessions, he commented on the difference between himself and the beggar. Both aspired to security, he said, and it seemed the beggar had found it, while Augustine vainly sought it. “True it is that the joy which he had was not the true joy,” the great confessor continued, “but yet I, by my ambition, was seeking after one more false by far. And certainly he was merry while I was melancholy, and he was safe while I was full of fear.”

Neither ambition nor alcohol has any positive answers to establish self-worth and success. We are miserably misled if we feel that our best hope is simply between two evils, not between the right and the wrong—the good and the evil, God and Satan. That is part of our problem. We get accustomed to accepting something less than total victory or complete defeat. God has a better idea: absolute success for us and obliterating defeat for Satan. In God alone are the things that C. S. Lewis calls “the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” Even now, however, the scent, the echo, and the news embolden and empower our lives!

Courtesy of Speaker’s Sourcebook of New Illustrations by Virgil Hurley © 1995 by Word, Incorporated.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.