Translating a World on the Edge

We are beings with the ability to make choices. But often we’re reluctant to make them. Sometimes that’s because we don’t want to take on the responsibility of what might happen after we make our choice, or our stand on some issue. Is this laziness, or a lack of courage? I think it might be both.

But there are some choices that are so important we must find the courage to make them–and not later, but now. Oh, I’ll get to it someday just doesn’t cut the mustard when it comes to something as important as our soul and where it will spend eternity.

As a youth, Saint Augustine lived a hedonistic lifestyle for a time, associating with young men who boasted of their sexual exploits with women and men. They urged the inexperienced boys, like Augustine, to seek experience or to make up stories about their experiences in order to gain acceptance. It was during this period that he uttered his famous prayer, “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.”

Like Saint Augustine, some say they will wait for the right moment to change their errant ways. But what if we aren’t given a right moment? What if we’re suddenly given no more moments at all.

We can go on and on for some time in our addictions, selfishness, meanness, and refusal to listen to the Word of God. But we cannot go on forever. There will come a time when our earthly life will be extinguished.

So how long will we wait to do what we know in our hearts we need to do? How long will it take for us to quit slapping God’s love  away and instead,  turn toward it?