‘People are moved to wonder by mountain peaks,
by vast waves of the sea, by broad waterfalls on rivers,
by the all-embracing extent of the ocean, by the revolution of stars.
But in themselves they are uninterested.’
-Augustine
In our current culture there is an inward focus that lends itself towards self-obsession. One can see these tendencies in some corners of broader evangelicalism as well. However, in my own tradition of Reformed Protestantism there can often, in contrast, be a complete lack of inward reflection or a profound fear of it. This post and more to follow will seek to retrieve some of the best insights from past giants of the faith to recover the intentional practice of pursuing “self-understanding for the purpose of self-giving,” (John Stott). I begin with St. Augustine (d. 430).
In Augustine’s famous Confessions, “There is laid bare to us…a human heart with a completeness of self-revelation probably unparalleled in literature," (B.B. Warfield). In the Confessions, Augustine invites us into the depths and darkness, the boarded-up rooms and broken-down hallways, the sorrows and sins, the chaos and comforts of his heart. Undoubtedly, his is a “great heart, to whose beating we cannot but attend," (Warfield). As you patiently attend to this heart beating throughout the book, you notice that Augustine writes reflectively, purposefully, and prayerfully.
First, Augustine writes reflectively. In this work, he wants to produce a survey of the most important people, places, seasons, and circumstances that shaped his heart and life.[4] Through this reflection he gains a better knowledge of himself; but even more, a better knowledge of the God who worked through all those things to rescue him.
Next, Augustine writes purposefully. He says that the reasons for these spiritual reflections were to grow in his own affections for God, to stir the affections of others for God, and that he and the readers might know his miseries and God’s mercies. His purposes in these reflections, then, are not to fuel self-absorption, but to fuel passionate worship and to serve others.
Last, and perhaps most importantly, Augustine wrote prayerfully. He prays early on, “I beseech you, my God, show me myself.” In prayerful conversation with God, he also writes, “What I know of myself I know because you grant me light.” Augustine knew that to know God, God must reveal himself; and to know himself, God must reveal Augustine to Augustine. That is why Augustine did all of his purposeful reflection in this book as an act of devoted, dependent prayer upon his gracious God.
Though the Confessions are reflections by Augustine about Augustine, they are done in such a way that the main theme is not Augustine, but rather God’s extravagant grace to profoundly lost sinners. This is why B.B. Warfield states that Augustine was “breaking out a pathway not only for his own but for our feet.”
Let’s listen to Warfield’s counsel, learn from Augustine’s Confessions, and consider our own life-stories reflectively, purposefully, and prayerfully.
More to come.
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