The Christian Way
There is the Fool’s Way, there is the way of the disillusioned ‘Sensible Man’ and then there is the Christian way of handling those things in life that lose their novelty.
Remember from Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis, when he wrote. “There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality.”
“Now there are two wrong ways of dealing with this fact, and one right one.”
C.S. Lewis went on to discuss the right one.
“(3) The Christian Way— The Christian says, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well , there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death ; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.
There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of ‘Heaven’ ridiculous by saying they do not want ‘to spend eternity playing harps’. The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them. All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course, a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity. Crowns are mentioned to suggest the fact that those who are united with God in eternity share His splendour and power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven (gold does not rust) and the preciousness of it. People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs.”
Lewis, C. S. (2009-05-28). Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics) (p. 137). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
We were not meant to lay eggs. We were meant to make the main thing, the main thing.
What do you think that you were made for?
Lewis, C. S. (2009-05-28). Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics) (pp. 136-137). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
- UPDATE – The old and the new - July 18, 2023
- Rehab is work - April 14, 2023
- I lost my wallet - April 6, 2023
