Saturday, June 27

Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature.
—2 Peter 1:4

There’s something about pleasure that wears thin. In the beginning, pleasure tickles our fancy, stimulates our thoughts and emotions, and can even make us giddy with excitement. When pleasure is too intense, too demanding, too sustained, it can corrupt and demean our soul.

What started out as a gift of joy becomes an obsession or an excessive desire or an automatic response. Then our soul is damaged by the very thing that was meant to give it delight.

Yet we need not be mere passive recipients of the corruption that arises from the misuse of pleasure. Heaven promises us that we can choose to participate in the divine nature—that is, we are not relegated to being a slave to pleasure. We can look at the world through the eyes of heaven and experience pleasure that is pure.

When we see the larger canvas on which humans and heaven interact, we are able to perceive the balance between pleasure and pain, joy and sadness, light and dark, life and death. Then we can look out on the world, or we can look into the core of our own soul, and find there the ground that is ready for the touch of God.

Gracious God, when my longing leads me away from the center of my being where you dwell, whisper me back to you with love.