The real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it . . . the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.
C.S. Lewis
I must confess I experience an inner hastiness that feels a lot like the rush of wild animals coming at me. I’m driven by the fear of not accomplishing enough. I fuss and fret with obsessive condemning thoughts that I’m not doing the right thing.
You may have other wild animals coming at you, maybe a vague fear of losing your stuff or not having enough of it. Perhaps you fuss and fret about whether others like you or not. Maybe you’re preoccupied with making yourself feel better so you drink more alcohol or coffee than you should. Perhaps anxiety makes you want to control others.
Inner pressures and compulsions inhabit our natural worlds. But there is another, supernatural reality. Notice Lewis’ quote, there is another voice, another point of view, a larger, stronger, quieter life.
It’s a far higher, far sweeter, far more noble reality than the one we live in. And we don’t understand it.
Yes, we have glimpses of its wonder and beauty. However, when we see Jesus’ hand touch the leper’s sores, when we hear him teach about peacemaking or when we hear him pray for those who tortured and crucified him, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do,” we clearly do not understand.
Sometimes we give up and decide Jesus’ way of living is unrealistic, way to high for anyone to put into practice. But we’re not supposed to be able to understand the kingdom or its king. We’re supposed to look and be in awe. If we could understand it all, we would be God.
The marvelous thing is that as we look at this beautiful realm, we’re gradually changed into what we’re looking at “from glory to glory.”1 We don’t have to understand, we just have to keep looking.
Unless we recognize this other transcendent world, so different from our own, we will live as caterpillars upon the earth rather than butterflies soaring through the air. Unless, as C.S. Lewis says, we let the “other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in,” we may be religious, but we will not be living the Christian life.
The Psalmist knew this truth thousands of years ago. I invite us all to pray his prayer each morning before the wild animals get us.
“O God, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”2
Leave a Reply