And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves, and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.
Interpretation
Obeying God may require us to go against our own desires, which can be challenging.
This quote by Moby suggests that true obedience to a higher moral or divine authority often clashes with our personal desires and instincts. The struggle to disobey our own inclinations highlights the complexity of faith and the challenges we face in aligning our actions with spiritual principles.
In practice
In a sermon about faith, a pastor might use this quote to illustrate the challenges of spiritual obedience.
So in 1987 I gave up all animal products and became a vegan. Simply so that I could eat and live in accordance with my beliefs that animals have their own lives, that they're entitled to their own lives and that contributing to animal suffering is something that I don't want to be a part of.
But when a man’s religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him.
I love to be busy. I'm envious of people who are able to take their spare time and relax. All I like to do is work. Perhaps it's lingering Calvinist guilt?
There might be a lot of difference between Republicans and Democrats on key social issues like women's rights and health care. But when it comes to taking corporate cash, they're pretty much the same beast.
It's heartbreaking that so many hundreds of millions of people around the world are desperate for the right to vote, but here in America people stay home on election day.
Keep your weather eye open, and sing out every time.
They came from the four corners of the earth, driven by hunger, plague, tumors, and the cold, and stopped here. They couldn’t go any futrther because of the ocean. That’s France, that’s the French people.
Old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false.
For they are the knights of summer, and winter is coming.
Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.
People who read me seem to be divided into four groups: twenty-five percent like me for the right reasons; twenty-five percent like me for the wrong reasons; twenty-five percent hate me for the wrong reasons; twenty-five percent hate me for the right reasons. It's that last twenty-five percent that worries me.
We are all the judges and the judged, victims of the casual malice and fantasy of others, and ready sources of fantasy and malice in our turn. And if we are sometimes accused of sins of which we are innocent, are there not also other sins of which we are guilty and of which the world knows nothing?
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.