Light Lenten Reflections

Week 6

Live Like a Narnian

When I got up this morning, the sun had already risen. I didn't actually see it, but the lightening of the clouds indicated it had most likely happened, like it did the day before, and I have faith it will tomorrow. I went out to the car later in the morning and drove to the store. I believed the car would start, run, get me where I wanted to go despite my lack of in-depth automotive knowledge. I also believed the drivers in the cars I passed on the road had a survival instinct at least as strong as my own, would stay on their side of the road and get where they wanted to go without doing anything stupid to prevent me from getting where I wanted to go. I have faith in my fellow man...within reason...

Faith...Part of the Merriam-Webster definition calls it a firm belief in something for which there is no proof and also as a complete belief and trust in and loyalty to God. In the book of Hebrews, the Bible says faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. The sun's rise tomorrow and a safe arrival at the store are not guaranteed. However, I have enough trust, assurance and conviction to believe both are highly likely, but I'm not sure if either are indicators of true, rubber-meets-the-road, faith. I believe all sorts of things because, frankly, I am surrounded by good reasons to believe them. My personal inclination is to lean toward the believable. My collection of facts about what I believe may be incomplete, but I usually have accrued enough of them to make my beliefs reasonable, and the missing pieces may even give my belief system an element of faith about it.

But faith, true faith, is when all is missing pieces, or, sometimes, no pieces at all. Of course, there is always the chance that the thing I put my faith in may be foolish, may not even be real, but the faith I'm talking about here is the faith that I have in what I can't see, but what I hope, on most days, to be true. And I go on, living my life of faith, on most days, until I come to that day, or that week, or that year of doubt. The thing or the Person I have put my faith in has not behaved like I have believed it or He would, and my faith is shaken.

My experience of faith is that it is continuous but not always constant in its weight. Some days it just seems stronger than on other days. In circumstances where there isn't much heft to my faith, I fear it is in danger of floating away. To look at the hope of eternity in light of the world around me is enough to suck the mass out of my faith on some days.

I first read C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia as an adult. If you have not read this series of books written for children, I highly recommend it. (Notice I wrote “books written for children” and not “children's books”. They are profound reading for adults...) My favorite book in the series is The Silver Chair. In part of the story, two children, a captured prince and a marsh-wiggle are trying to make their escape from a witch's underground kingdom. They have been trapped there for a long time, and their memories of the Overland, the place above ground where the noble talking lion Aslan rules, have started to fade. Their crisis of faith has been helped along by the witch's sweet magic powder and her insistence that all they remember of the real world is just, in fact, a dream or a children's story. Puddleglum, the marsh-wiggle, by nature a creature of gloomy disposition, is the last to succumb to the witch's faith-destroying tactics. But he rouses himself out of her spell to declare what I consider to be one of the noblest defenses of faith in literature:

 

“...All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I don't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that' s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say.”

Many days, my faith is strong, heavy even, but on those light-weight days that do come, C. S. Lewis, via Puddleglum, speaks weight into my faith. When I see no way, the marsh-wiggle encourages me to make a deliberate commitment to a Person. I choose to be on Aslan's side and live like a Narnian.

Something to Ponder:

How “heavy” is your faith in general? In believing and trusting in other people, in believing and trusting in what you may know about God? How dependent is your faith on the “facts” that make your beliefs seem reasonable? Think about what would happen if you couldn't “see” those facts any longer. How would this affect your faith? How do the words “blind faith” make you feel?

Something to Pray:

Grab a Bible or go to BibleGateway.com. Read Hebrews 11:1-3. Now pray it. In light of what you pondered above, ask God to give you the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, especially in your relationship with Him. Ask Him to give “weight” to your faith. Read Hebrews 11:8-12 as it tells about God's promises to Abraham and his response of faith. Ask God to give you faith like Abraham's, to follow God even when you are not sure where He is leading you, to believe in His goodness and provision even when it seems impossible.

Faith is not intelligent understanding, faith is deliberate commitment to

a Person where I see no way. - Oswald Chambers, March 28, My Utmost for His Highest

A version of this was previously posted on the blog at www.trinitylink.com.