Augustine's discussion of "use" and "enjoyment" is an interesting one because it is so easily applied to our daily life. When this concept is grasped, it can help us make decisions to become worthy of living in God's presence. His discussion helps us decide which things should be used and which should be enjoyed.
             Augustine defines "use" as "something to apply whatever it may be to the purpose of obtaining what you love-if indeed it is something that ought to be loved." The first part of this definition is relatively straightforward. It is the second part regarding whether something out to be loved or not that open much room for discussion and we will get in to that later. Augustine also says "To enjoy something is to hold fast to it in love for its own sake." Now our task is deciding that which we should use and that which we should enjoy. Augustine gives an example to help us understand the framework of this idea and the way it should be applied when making this decision. Imagine travelers who can only be happy in their homeland and, because they couldn't find happiness being away form home, they wished to return. Therefore they need some type of transport to bring them to their home-their object of enjoyment. When engaged in this transport, they begin to enjoy their mode !
             of transport and therefore, they are enjoying something they should be using. If this is the case, they are reluctant to finish their journey home and therefore retard the object of their true enjoyment-the object that is worthy of being enjoyed and loved. This is like our journey to the Lord. The Lord is the object of our enjoyment and the world is our mode of transport. If we begin to enjoy the world and lose focus of our final destination, our priorities are not that of the Lord's. Another example of this is seen in scripture in Luke 13:18-21. In the passage Abraham...