Enlarged by Thee

"The house of my soul is too narrow for Thee to come into me; let it be enlarged by Thee." 

Words written by Augustine somewhere around the year 400 and for whatever reason they struck me this evening as I was reading them. Over the past couple of weeks I've been helping out at the San Carlos Community Church as we are in a time of transition, looking for a new pastor. It's fallen on a few of us who remain for the summer months to cover things like preaching, worship, etc. The last couple of Sundays were "my turn" to preach and I've been speaking from Paul's verses in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18:

"16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 

What started out as a passage for one message in early July ended up becoming several messages...and there's still more to talk about! A look at Paul's life and his words is always a humbling one, considering he was probably one of the greatest missionaries/church planters of all time. It's not even so much all that God accomplished through him that is so incredible, though this is quite something to think about as well! It's also the way in which he lived his life, in complete surrender to Jesus, no matter what it cost him. He so lived this attitude out that he seemed to have little use for this life itself other than to do what he could to "take as many people with him" to eternity as possible.

And so this particular passage seems to capture a sense of his viewpoint, living not for this life here and now but living for what's coming. It's pretty humbling to think about, especially knowing how easy it is to get caught up in this life and living as though this life is all I've got. I kind of agree with Augustine when he says, "The house of my soul is too narrow for Thee to come into me; let it be enlarged by Thee." Let my heart, mind, all that I am, be enlarged to somehow be able to capture or contain more of this amazing and awesome God that loves us so deeply!