Each day this Lent we’re looking at major “turning points” in Christian history – moments or seasons in which the story of God’s people took an important and often unexpected turn.
As Monica saw the sails vanish over the horizon, her heart sank.
If God had answered her prayers, that boat would never have left its moorings in North Africa 340 years after Christ and headed for Italy.
Monica's son Augustine was aboard, and she was certain he was headed for disaster.
Augustine was brilliant. He was also rebellious and self-assured. Monica and her husband Patricius, a Roman official, knew that he was deserving of a first-rate education. As a Christian, she yearned for his studies to acquaint him with Christ. Instead, Augustine maddeningly concluded that Christianity was a religion for simple-minded fools.
Eager to explore what the world had to offer, he took a concubine, fathered a child, and dabbled in theological speculation with the Manicheans, a high-minded cult. Monica begged him to turn to God, but he rebuffed her at every turn.
Ultimately he decided to skip town and sail toward greater adventures in Italy. This would be like a teenage kid telling his mother that he’s tired of living in Paducah, Kentucky, and wants to find out why everyone’s so excited about Las Vegas.
Monica spent a sleepless night pleading with the Lord to block his path. “Please let him stay here in Africa so that one day he might find and serve you!”
All she heard was silence.
Augustine sailed away unhindered, leaving Monica feeling helpless and confused.
But God knew best. In Italy, the future Saint Augustine came under the influence of Ambrose, bishop of Milan, whom he was surprised to discover was anything but a simple-minded fool. The young scholar gradually found himself edging toward an intellectual conversion to Christianity.
He wasn’t quite so excited, however, about surrendering the rest of his body.
Later in life, when he was in his early 40s, Augustine authored the world’s first spiritual autobiography – a “tell-all” book that astonished the public at its publication in A.D. 400, and remains a fascinating read to this day.
The Confessions, comprised of 13 sections written in Latin, is framed as a prayer to God. Its opening paragraph includes one of church history’s most quotable quotes: “For You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
He admits that he had frequently prayed another memorable prayer: “Make me chaste, Lord…but not yet.”
Augustine reports that one day he was agonizing over such matters in his garden – Should I or shouldn’t I go all-in for Jesus? – when he heard the voice of a boy or a girl (he never knew which) chanting over and over the Latin words Tolle Lege, Tolle Lege (pronounced “tol-lay lah-jhay”). Those words mean, “Take up and read, take up and read.” He tells us that he had never heard this chant before, and was unaware of any children’s game that included, “Take up and read.”
It occurred to him that maybe he should do just that. But take up and read what? Just a few steps away was a copy of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Augustine opened the book at random and read the first line he saw. It was Romans 13:14: “Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and stop thinking about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.”
For Augustine, it was like a bolt out of the blue. This was his turning point. He decided to abandon himself to Jesus.
It proved to be a turning point in Christian history as well.
It’s not a stretch to say that Augustine belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of Christian theologians. He changed forever the way that followers of Jesus think about God, truth, Scripture, and time. Both Catholics and Protestants claim him as their own. His book City of God famously depicts reality as the intermingling of two “cities” – the City of God, whose citizens are those who trust Christ, and the City of Man, the faith-resisting environment in which people of faith are required to live out their lives.
What is the central dilemma of every human being? Augustine suggested that we suffer from “disordered loves.”
We abandon ourselves to worthy endeavors – to dream jobs, dream relationships, and dream achievements – only to discover that they are not capable of providing ultimate meaning for our lives. Augustine asserted that it’s OK to love many things. But whenever we love anything more than God, we will always end up disappointed.
People typically love less important things more, and more important things less. The result is the disorder of our lives caused by the disorder of our loves.
That's because, to put it simply, you are what you love.
Author and pastor Tim Keller observed, “There is nothing wrong with loving your work, but if you love it more than your family, then your loves are out of order and you may ruin your family. Or if you love making money more than you love justice, then you will exploit your employees, again, because your loves are disordered.”
The goal is not to stop loving our jobs, our hobbies, and our friendships. It’s to love God more than all those things. That allows our “lesser loves” to fall into their proper places, where we can really appreciate them for the good things they are (instead of the ultimate things we sometimes imagine them to be).
The British playwright Oscar Wilde cynically observed, “In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”
Followers of Jesus have a comeback for that: The greatest tragedy in life is failing to find out, for ourselves, that the one thing we want more than anything else is to experience the love of God.
Later in life, Augustine reflected on his mother’s sincere prayers that night so many years before. He was grateful – grateful that God had chosen not to answer them. If God had said “yes” to her stated desire, then her real desire for his spiritual awakening might never have been satisfied.
He wrote this prayer of thanks: “You, Lord, in the depth of your counsels, hearing the main point of her desire, regarded not what she then asked, so that you might make me what she always desired.”
We may think we know exactly how God should guide us. In our prayers we may even announce, “Now, Lord, make sure you affirm this plan for my life.”
But God makes no such guarantees.
Augustine, the brilliant theologian, is Exhibit A that sometimes our unanswered prayers, as painful as they may seem, may actually represent God’s “yes” to the prayers of the rest of the world.
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