From the Pastor’s Desk on Monday, May 6th, 2013
C. S. Lewis writes, “The Christian doctrine of suffering explains, I believe, a
very curious fact about the world we live in. The settled happiness and security
which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but
joy, pleasure, and merriment He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but
we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy.” …If we start to feel secure, Lewis
argued, we will try to make the world our permanent home. The world itself will
then become an obstacle to our return to God. But, “a few moments of happy love,
a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a football match, (a
good book), have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with
some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.” Quoted
by Jerry Sittser in The Will of God as a Way of Life.
I have a strong sense that this quote is true to God’s purpose and to our own
circumstances and nature as well. We work hard at making earth our home when the
Scriptures say we are aliens in this world. We easily worship idols when it is
God we are to worship now and endlessly. Praise God for reminding us, even
through suffering, that this present earth and this present evil age, is not our
home, we’re just a passing through. God withholds in order to give us Himself
and eternity. Do I hear an Amen? |