The tragedy of human life is that we weave for ourselves manacles that
fetter us from following and securing the one good for which we are
made. Our evil past holds us in a firm grip. The cords which confine
our limbs are of our own spinning. What but ourselves is the reason
why so many of us do not yield to God's merciful drawings of us to
Himself? We have riveted the chains and twined the net that holds us
captive, by our own acts. It is we ourselves who have paralysed our
wills, so that we see the light of God but as a faint gleam far away,
and dare not move to follow the gleam. It is we who have smothered or
silenced our conscience and perverted our tastes, and done violence to
all in us that 'thirsteth for God, even the living God.' Alas! how
many of us have let some strong evil habit gain such a grip of us that
it has overborne our higher impulses, and silenced the voice within us
that cries out for the living God! We are kept back from Him by our
worse selves, and whoever lets that which is lowest in him keep him
from following after God, who is his 'being's end and aim,' is caught
and prisoned by the cords woven and knitted out of his sins. Are there
none of us who know, when they are honest with themselves, that they
would have been true Christians long since, had it not been for one
darling evil that they cannot make up their minds to cast off? Wills
disabled from strongly willing the good, consciences silenced as when
the tongue is taken out of a bell-buoy on a shoal, tastes perverted
and set seeking amid the transitory treasures of earth for what God
only can give them, these are the 'cords' out of which are knotted the
nets that hold so many of us captive, and hinder our feet from
following after God, even the living God, in following and possessing
whom is the only liberty of soul, the one real joy of life.