classic Saturday

Yes, I realize this is Sunday, not Saturday, but I'm just home changing gears from one trip to another and thought I'd post a bit from Francois Fenelon's devotion this past week. I think this selection has been my personal favorite so far from this Devotional Classics book. Fenelon (1651-1715) wrote on giving oneself wholly to God in love and detaching from the things of this world. A few excerpts from his essay "Christian Perfection":

"Christian perfection is not so severe, tiresome, and constraining as we think. It asks us to be God's from the bottom of our hearts. And since we thus are God's, everything we do for him is easy. Those who are God's are always glad, when they are not divided, because they only want what God wants and want to do for him all that he wishes. They divest themselves of everything, and in this divesting find a hundredfold return.

Peace of conscience, liberty of heart, the sweetness of abandoning ourselves in he hands of God, the joy of always seeing the light grow in our hearts, finally, freedom from the fears and insatiable desires of he times, multiply a hundredfold the happiness which the true children of God possess in the midst of their crosses, if they are faithful."....

"What folly to fear to be too entirely God's! It is to fear to be too happy. It is to fear to love God's will in all things. It is to fear to have too much courage in the crosses which aer inevitable, too much comfort in God's love, and too much detachment from the passions which make us miserable." ...

"How dangerous it is for our salvation, how unworthy of God and of ourselves, how pernicious even for the peace of our hearts, to want always to stay where we are! Our whole life was only given us to advance us by great strides toward our heavenly country."...

"There is only one way to love God: to take not a single step without him, and to follow with a brave heart wherever he leads."...

Author Richard Foster suggests the following exercise: Fenelon writes, "God has little patience with those weak souls who say to themselves, 'I shall go this far and no farther.'" Define your comfort zone this week. Examine the limits of your obedience. Ask yourself why you would only "go this far and no farther."...