Not Here, Not Here

Not here, not here

 There is only one thing you can be sure of: that you will die; everything else in this life, good or bad, is uncertain except death.

Wherever you turn there is uncertainty; only death is sure, but even the day of your death is uncertain.

We are wanders with no permanent home on earth; that is in Heaven, and we do not know when we shall hear, ' Come, set out for home'.

Only let us be ready. We shall be, if we long now for our true fatherland.

And yet only with difficulty, because of our weakness, can we unceasingly direct our hearts and works to God. We try to find something in this world to rest in, to pause and lie down.

I do not mean the resting places lovers of evil seek: foul amusements, cheating others, a life of luxury.

No - look at the good man: he seeks his whole refreshment in his family, in a humble life, in the house he has built for himself; these are the satisfactions of the innocent.

But our all embracing love must be for eternal life, and so God allows bitterness to be mixed with these things. Don't be upset when these innocent pleasures have their trials; the man journeying to his own country must not mistake the inn for his home.

DAILY READING WITH
St Augustine --- The Heart at Rest