Detachment

I am reading a book called, The Glorious Pursuit and the last chapter I read was about Detachment...so good:

It is one thing to be surrendered. It is another thing entirely to be detached. Surrender is an act of the will, accepting physical circumstances or situations God has ordained and looking for HIS good purpose in them. Detachment means we stop finding our meaning and security in people, things, positions, money, and power so they no longer lure us into actions we know are unwise or unprofitable.

I don't know if this has ever been spelled out for me before. My sin has mostly felt cyclical and I think that is why. I have a life saturated with surrender but at times void of detachment. Detachment requires me to not merely look at how I am acting out, but to really sit and search my heart for the root... to examine the craving...

When a Christian falls today, 99 percent of the spiritual effort is spent trying to control the "stumbling"—that is, we focus on outer strategies to help us avoid situations in which we sin. A young dating couple will be told never to be alone together; an alcoholic will be warned away from bars or liquor stores. If the heart is bent by the appetite that leads to sin, all the external discipline agreed upon in moments of strength will wilt in the heat of desire.

Iron will—external discipline that creates physical distance but not spiritual deliverance—will be met with only limited success. John on the Cross explains, "We are not discussing the mere lack of things; this lack will not divest the soul if it craves for all these objects. We are dealing with the denudation (stripping of) the soul’s appetites and gratifications. This is what leaves it free and empty of all things, even though it possesses them. Since the things of the world cannot enter the soul, they are not in themselves an encumbrance… rather, it is the will and appetite dwelling within that cause the damage when set on these things."

If you have been fighting sin unsuccessfully, in large part because while you offer up the action, you can’t stop the craving, then you need the virtue of detachment. This virtue begins when we turn our eyes from the created to the Creator.

This is a long and daunting process I think, for our hearts to be in a place where they aren't just ignoring or going without the desires that they are bent towards. What would it be like to no longer even have the craving and more so for those cravings to be turned into something righteous and holy? As long as there are cravings, there will be broken sinful actions and/or spiritual exhaution and possibly resentment. Legitimate needs will be met in illegitimate ways. This resonated with me because the reality that we can talk to each other until we are blue in the face, knowing we are not getting through to the ones we love, felt kind of hopeless. At the end of the day people (all of us) are going to try and alleviate the hunger pains of our cravings. We do what we want. I want to want different things, to have different longings. How do we posture our hearts in a way where God can change our appetite?