More Ourselves than Ever

If you read the blog, this post may sounds familiar. I took a post I had written for the blog and adapted it to be used as a Conference Lenten devotional. Since it is a little different than before (hopefully more polished), I'm posting it here in its finished form.

Have you ever said, “I’m only human, after all.” We say it when we make a mistake. We say it when we sin, as if our humanity creates in us an inability to choose to follow the leadership of God. We say it as if our humanity is an acceptable and understandable excuse for our selfishness and self-centeredness.

I’m listening to a series of lectures about the work of C.S. Lewis. In the lectures, Dr. Louis Markos speaks of Lewis’s assertion that when we choose sin over obedience to God, we lose a small piece of our humanity. “Each time we choose ourselves or our sins over God and others, each time we close another inner door on the life-giving (but also revealing) light of Christ, we surrender another spark of our humanity. We (literally) dehumanize ourselves.”

The truth is it is not our humanity that causes us to sin. We are created in the image of God – human and good. The sanctifying grace of God – through the Spirit of God living in us - does not make us less human; it moves us closer to the humanity that God created. God’s sanctifying grace moves us toward the perfection and wholeness of true humanity.

In the Screwtape Letters, written by C. S. Lewis, Screwtape, a senior demon, writes to his nephew, Wormwood, a junior tempter, “When He [God] talks of their losing their selves, He means only abandoning the clamor of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.”

Prayer: Creating, sustaining God, help us to become more ourselves than ever. Forgive us when we choose to disobey, and move us closer to what you have created us to be. We pray in your son’s name, Amen.

Humanity

I'm listening to a series of lectures by Louis Markos (University of Michigan) about C.S. Lewis. Very interesting stuff!  The lecture about The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce started me thinking about what I'm writing about in this post.

Have you ever heard (or ever said), when confronted with sin, "He's only human"? Or "I'm only human"? Dr. Markos put a spin on that for me in this lecture.  

In heaven, we reach the culmination of our humanity.  In heaven, our humanity - our identity - our personality - are not lost. They are transformed into what they were intended to be when we were created. 

When we choose to sin, each time, we lose a little piece of our humanity. We move farther and farther away from what we were intended to be - what we were created to be.

So blaming our sin on our humanity is the opposite of what God intended. Our humanity is what we were meant to become, and our sin decreases it.

I like the metaphor that Markos describes from Lewis' writing.  Heaven is huge - full of potential and fulfillment. Hell is tiny, shriveled and small. He said, "If a bird in heaven were to eat hell, he would hardly even notice it."

Joy

Joy. What does joy mean to you?

Is it the happiness you experience when you see your favorite team win the Super Bowl? Is it the pleasure of a fine meal? This is all joy, but it's not the Christian joy. I don't mean that it's sinful to find pleasure in these and other experiences - just that it's not how God defines joy.

And, interestingly enough, it's not how C.S. Lewis describes joy. Joy is the yearning for ... the longing for ... something else.  

I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again... I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and Pleasure often is.”  (C.S. Lewis)

Joy is the longing for something that we experience for only a moment. We cannot hold onto it. It is not an end in itself. When we make it the goal, rather than the goal being what we yearn for, we cannot reach it (the joy or the goal). Complicated, isn't it?

Joy is never ours to achieve. It is a gift from God - a spiritual gift. Lewis, I think, if I understand correctly, would say that joy is the longing for God. It is what we experience for just a moment when we are in God's presence. It is not something we create - it is fleeting. Try to hold onto it and it slips away. Try to recreate it, and you'll fail. Open yourself up to sanctifying grace; find joy.

Time and Eternity

Have you ever said, "She is growing up so quickly! Just the other day, she was a baby?" Or marveled at the adult-ness of your sons? I have. Time seems to rocket by. We say in our office that we speed towards Annual Conference and then we rush towards Christmas.

According to Louis Markos, in the CS Lewis lectures I'm listening to, this is evidence that we are created for eternity. We live in a time-bound world. We are in time, we are part of time - we can't imagine a world without time. So why are we so started that time passes? 

He says that Lewis proposes that our inability to judge the actual speed of the passage of time is evidence that we are created for a world without time.

It's an interesting thought.