Only Not Yet

“For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” — Romans 7:19 (KJV)

By now Augustine's doubts were mostly gone. He says, “nor did I now desire to be more certain of Thee, but more steadfast in Thee.” His problem wasn't his head any more. It was his will. “But still I was enthralled with the love of woman.”

He went to see Simplicianus, an old priest who had been like a father to Ambrose. Simplicianus told him about Victorinus, a famous professor in Rome, so honoured that he had a statue in the Forum. Victorinus had secretly been studying the Bible and told Simplicianus, “Understand that I am already a Christian.” Simplicianus replied, “I will not believe it, nor will I rank you among Christians, unless I see you in the Church of Christ.” Victorinus joked, “Do walls then make Christians?” He was afraid of what his powerful pagan friends would say. But eventually he said, “Go we to the Church; I wish to be made a Christian.” When he stood up to declare his faith publicly, the congregation recognised him, and a murmur ran through the crowd: “Victorinus! Victorinus!”

Augustine was “on fire to imitate him.” But he couldn't. He explains exactly why, in a passage about habit that might be the most useful thing he ever wrote:

“My will the enemy held, and thence had made a chain for me, and bound me. For of a forward will, was a lust made; and a lust served, became custom; and custom not resisted, became necessity.”

A wrong want, given in to, becomes a habit. A habit, never fought, becomes something you feel you can't live without. He compares himself to someone lying in bed in the morning who knows he should get up but keeps sinking back into sleep. When God called him, he had only “those dull and drowsy words, 'Anon, anon,' 'presently,' 'leave me but a little.'” But “'presently, presently,' had no present, and my 'little while' went on for a long while.”

Then a visitor named Pontitianus, an African official at the emperor's court, noticed a copy of Paul's letters on Augustine's table and started talking about Antony, the Egyptian monk who had given away everything to follow Christ. He told how two of his colleagues had found a book about Antony's life in a cottage and read it, and one of them turned to the other and said, “But a friend of God, if I wish it, I become now at once.” Both gave up their careers on the spot.

As Pontitianus talked, Augustine felt God turning him around to face himself, “that I might see how foul I was.” He remembered a prayer he had prayed years before, at the very start of his youth, and it shamed him:

“Give me chastity and continency, only not yet.”

“For I feared lest Thou shouldest hear me soon,” he explains, “and soon cure me of the disease of concupiscence, which I wished to have satisfied, rather than extinguished.”

“Only not yet” might be the most honest prayer anyone has ever written down. Maybe it's yours. It could be about porn, vaping, gaming till 3 a.m., a relationship you know is wrong, or a lie you keep up. You know what's right. You even want to want it. Just not yet. Augustine's warning is that “not yet” has no end date. Habit doesn't wait for you to be ready. It just gets stronger.

One thing to do this week: name your own “not yet.” Take one concrete step against it today, not next week: delete the app, throw it out, end the conversation. Then tell one person you trust what you're doing.