I recently enjoyed this paragraph from C.S. Lewis’s Miracles.
“It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. ‘Look out!’ we cry, ‘it’s alive’. And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back—I would have done so myself if I could—and proceed no further with Christianity. An ‘impersonal God’—well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads—better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap—best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband—that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (man’s search for God!) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?”
Though this section is intended for searchers and seekers rather than saints, I see applicability. Every Christian, though he boasts in the living God, will now and then behave as if God is dead. Boastful theology, answers lauded as correct, right, and even orthodox are at most eulogy and at least soul-less dirge for those who suppress the Spirit within. Right answers are good; better still are answers from the heart, without words, unspoken, tacitly known and obeyed because they are the stuff of a new creature.
Please watch this space for future posts from Christ Covenant’s pastor and staff.
