Magnanimity (HT: RZIM’s Margaret Manning)

Wow! I just read my daily “Slice of Infinity” from Ravi Zacharias ministries and since it is perfectly on point to my most recent post, I encourage you to check it out:

Let me tempt you with just a brief excerpt:

“… Acedia was considered one of the most serious of sins. It manifested itself in sloth or spiritual despair, but more significantly embodied the temptation to give up caring about anything truly important. Acedia led to spiritual impotence and smallness of heart. Spiritual impotence would allow vice to flourish and virtue to languish, not because vice was purposely chosen or intentionally entered into, but because spiritual lassitude desiccated one’s concern to be virtuous.

In our day, this same acedia distracts many a Christian pilgrim from following the way of Jesus. Author Kathleen Norris warns that acedia ‘is known to foster excessive self-justification, as well as a casual yet implacable judgmentalism toward others,’ and readily lends itself to this process of spiritual apathy. With this understanding, we can see why the Parson would encourage magnanimity to combat acedia, for a magnanimous person is a person who is generous of spirit, caring, and gracious in forgiveness. Chaucer, through the voice of the Parson, warns that ‘a great heart is needed against acedia, lest it swallow up the soul.’ A great heart is a magnanimous heart full of generosity and graciousness, eager to forgive. Acedia, on the other hand, makes our hearts small, consumed not with care for the things God cares for, but devoured by things that do not matter at all.

Acedia further makes it easy for me to pluck the speck out of my sister’s eye while I ignore the log in my own. This propensity to see others as the primary problem, while elevating one’s own self is a clear sign that acedia has taken root in one’s life. On the contrary, magnanimity, as Norris notes, ‘requires creativity to recognize our faults, and to discern virtues in those we would rather disdain …”

Don’t you want to read the entire article? (And while you’re at it, sign up for this great e-devotional? It is the ONLY devotional I have subscribed to for YEARS. It’s that good, that consistently.)

Oh, that we would have mananimous heart this very day!

Yours,
Tara B.