Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.”
NL Daily Devotion for Monday, August 1, 2022
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
This is an invitation. An invitation to a deeper, richer, more fulfilling way of living. It’s not about becoming a boring, prudish judge of other people’s behavior. It’s about realizing that all of those things—licentiousness, drunkenness, idolatry—don’t fill the God-shaped hole we all have in our spirits. They are an attempt to wrest happiness that is ultimately doomed to failure.
We’ve all done it. We’ve all turned to worldly things to try to find satisfaction and meaning in life. And we’ve all experienced the horrendous let-down when those worldly things fail us.
God is inviting us into a better way. We’ve already spent enough time engaging in those fruitless attempts and manufacturing happiness. Now, we can turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. When we do that, we find that life is full of deep joys and mysteries we hadn’t even realized. Not that this life is easy or perpetually “happy” in worldly terms. But it’s far more satisfying than any substance or behavior we might use to do it on our own.
What have I turned to in the past to try to find happiness or satisfaction with life? Did it work on my own terms?