Expulsion: A Meditation on Marc Chagall’s Expulsion from the Garden of Eden

 Freedom is not the ability to say no to what you want. It's not wanting it anymore. Or maybe it's not needing it anymore to feel complete and happy. If you don't think you're complete and have enough, then no amount of desire or striving will be enough. So I don't pray anymore that I would be able to say no to the obsessive desires of the flesh. I ask God to compel me to want Him to the degree that those other desires will either die in their comparative insignificance or else seriously reposition themselves under the one thing that matters. First things first, second things second. Everything else can either lag at the bottom of the pile or die off completely.