C.S. Lewis will be remembered as one of the most important Christian thinkers of the twentieth century. He was born in Ireland in 1900, and the major part of his adult years was spent as a Fellow at Magdalen College in Oxford, England, where he taught medieval literature. It was in 1931 that Lewis was “surprised by joy,” his own description of his conversion to Christianity. Lewis was a brilliant scholar and writer, who used his considerable talents to reach thousands of persons through the printed and spoken word. This excerpt comes from his book, Mere Christianity.
Listening to that Other Voice
“The real problem for the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes 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 fussing’s and fretting’s; coming in out of the wind.
“We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting God work at the right part of us. It is the difference between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through.
“Jesus never talked vague, idealistic gas. When Jesus said, “Be perfect,” he meant it. Jesus meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder – in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
Love One Another - Brian
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