I’ve been wanting to write something again and now as the
new school year begins it seems like an appropriate time to pick this habit up
again.
There have been too many thoughts that have been clouding my
head and I haven’t found the adequate way to express them in words nor the person
nor moment to share them. So as I sit on my bed, taking in the quietness and peace
of the morning, I think I will finally express my thoughts verbally.
There is a book that has been the source of my ideas: Mere Christianity
by C.S. Lewis. I began reading it in the beginning of the summer and didn’t pick
it back up until two days ago. As I dwelled on my own beliefs, I felt
reconvicted and enlightened as Lewis explained the essence of Christianity.
Concepts that I’ve known since childhood made more sense. I had almost finished
reading the book when I arrived at the church I would be working at during the summer.
Though I read other books (to my amazement in their entirety), I didn’t finish
this one and other thoughts and incomplete ideas came to my mind.
The way Lewis writes fascinates me. His illustrations and understanding
of God dumbfounded me at the thought that some aspects of God are simpler (and
logical as well) than we think. God is the God who invented rhyme and reason,
why would anything He created or is for that matter not follow the same
conduct. Anyways, back to the point, I started seen myself wanting to think
like Lewis (or at least as he wrote) making logical arguments and using things
found in the natural world to explain the spiritual when the thought came to
mind: do I fully believe what I say I believe?
I comforted myself saying I did. In fact the other books I read
this summer where about deepening your faith and getting rid of anything thoughts,
actions, and behaviors that hinder your faith. But the thought kept on creeping
at my door. Am I just well-versed in Christian teachings? I’d like to think I am
to some extent. My father is a minister; I must have learned something from him.
But, what if I was just “knowledgeable?” This thought disconcerted me.
I’ve carried that thought like baggage most of the summer. What
about my calling to missions? Was that just an idea I came up with? What about
teaching the youth? Is that just something I do because I can? “It is for
freedom Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be
burdened again by the yoke of slavery.” Galatian 5:1. I had once again become a
slave to my own thoughts and desires to be a rational, well-educated, “knowledgeable”
individual. I had let the idea that I should try understand my faith as someone
outside my faith to see why they don’t believe, lead me to think that I,
myself, am not a believer. My “noble” quest had almost defeated me.
Then, I was comforted by this book I neglected to pick back
up. The chapter I read this morning talked about pretending. Now there are two
different sorts of pretending: one in which a bad pretends to be good in order
to deceive and another in which, for example, we pretend to be friendly because
we know it is courteous but as we pretend we soon notice we are indeed feeling friendlier.
Lewis used this to explain how we truly becoming little Christs by being as he
would be. This I had heard before but the second sort of pretending Lewis
explained almost broke me into tears. I’ll just take his words since I cannot
make justice to his diction.
“But [God] says ‘Let us pretend that this is not a mere creature, but Our Son. It is like Christ in so far as it is a Man, for He became Man. Let us pretend that it is also like Him in Spirit. Let us treat is as if it were what in fact it is not. Let us pretend in order to make the pretence into a reality.’ God looks at you as if you were a little Christ: Christ stands beside you to turn you into one.”
And that’s
the moment where I remember His vast love and how little or more like at all I deserve
it. God looks at me in such love and compassion, that even when I am completely
out of whack in my thinking He looks at me and says that is My child, and He
loves me and forgives me, in spite of me.
God will mold me into who He wants me to be. He will use me
however He sees fit, regardless of what I do. But how much more beautiful is it
not the moment we realize, that we are completely at His mercy and He loves us.
My walk in Christ is such a journey that I cannot explain it
in words, I just wish you could see my life and understand and simply see how good
God is. How he forgives and takes you by the hand and leads you to where you
need to go. I really just wish my life can reflect that.
