I am working my way through Thomas Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain again. I am not good at re-reading many books, but this one I’ve ready probably 5 times. It is his story of coming to faith and entering the monastery as a Cistercian brother.

As he came to faith, he struggled his first year. He was a PhD student at Columbia in 1938-39. He was learning about following Christ. The comparison he offered was Israel coming out of Egypt and moving into the promised land. God has called us to a new land and it’s a different place. We can’t act like we’re in Egypt anymore.

You can no longer live here as you did there (in Egypt). Your old life and your former ways are crucified now, and you must not seek to live anymore for your own gratification, but give up your own judgment into the hands of a wise director, and sacrifice your pleasures and comforts for the love of God and give the money you no longer spend on those things, to the poor.

Above all, eat your Daily Bread without which you cannot live, and come to know Christ Whose Life feed you…

We can’t insist on living like Egypt in the Promised Land. We have a new life given to us. The rules have changed, and they have changed for the good. No more thinking like a slave. Live free in Christ.