LISTENING TO LEWIS

I need to tell you at the beginning of this series of blogs that none of these are more than indirectly related to writing prayerfully, or even prayer. I will be writing a series of perspectives given by C.S. Lewis. And I need to warn you that his views go as strongly against the current cultural trends as they did in his day. If indeed you do not like or appreciate these entries, I would like you to tell me. I welcome discussion on this. I really do want to know what you think, even if what you have to say is so profound or so harsh that I have no answer. I much prefer such comments to your expressing your thoughts by vowing never to read this blog again.

The nearest Christian bookstore to our home is in a city a half hour away.  We went sometime before Christmas looking for a particular classic (I think it was George Mueller of Bristol.) for a Christmas present. They didn’t have it. And the manager of the store said thoughtfully, “I need to stock more classics.” I pointed out that they had a nice selection, even though they didn’t have the particular book We wanted. But she repeated, “We need to carry more Christian classics.” And I realized she was not simply referring to our need. This was clearly something she had been thinking for some time.

Sure enough, when we dropped in a few months later, they had among other things a display with 6 or 8 C.S. Lewis books, some I had never seen. I purchased 2; POEMS and ON STORIES. I want to talk with you a little about both of these books.

I did not get to ON STORIES until a short vacation this summer. It was a wonderful blessing! First, I enjoyed it simply because it was Lewis. I thought I had read his entire canon. I also enjoyed it because it is to some extent, written for writers. However, I am glad I did not discover these essays in the 70s when I was hungrily consuming everything I could find by Lewis. I have been writing or trying to write for publication since I was 19. But I don’t think I would have enjoyed them on the same level.

I hope I have whet your appetite for these entries simply by this introduction. And even at this preliminary stage, I welcome criticism and other remarks whether you have read the book or not.

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DO YOU BELIEVE?

Question #4

“What do you believe, and why do you believe it?”

Faith is the final stage and expression of knowledge. These are the final questions of how we know. One of the mistaken notions about belief is that it is little more than supposition. That misunderstands the foundation and force of faith. Belief adds to knowledge the force of conviction and action. Belief or faith places your life on the line for someone or something. A scientist must believe in the consistency of experience or experiment. We all have unquestioned faith in gravity. Faith is a measure of knowledge. Absolute knowledge is beyond humanity. It is reserved for God. He has put enough knowledge in this world to make trusting Him reasonable. But He has limited our knowledge enough that we must step out on faith.

Biblical faith in God is personal and relational. One of my favorite pictures of faith comes from my own childhood. I don’t remember exactly how old I was when this took place, but I was pretty young. We had a pump house slanting down from the edge of our garage. And some old tires were leaning up against the pump house wall. I managed to climb up on to the tires. And standing on the tires, I was able to grasp the roof and pull myself up. I walked up the slanting shingles and put my arms over the parapet around the top of our garage. It was easy to climb onto the parapet and then over the arch onto the porch of our Spanish style house. Up to this time the second story of our house filled my vision. But when I turned around on the porch I realized that I was ten or twelve feet above our driveway. I was terrified. I began to scream and yell for help. My father came out of the garage where he had been working. He looked up at me with a deadpan expression on his face. To this day I can see Dad reaching up with the work gloves that he always wore, and saying, “Jump David!” I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth and jumped into my father’s waiting embrace.

I trusted my father. I was not trusting our paved driveway to catch me. In faith we respond to God Himself. We courageously take Him at His word. This demonstrates as well as anything I know, the need to ask the second half of this question. “Why?” I believed even though I was afraid, because I knew I could trust my father’s word. This question also applies to whatever I doubt or disbelieve. As in most situations that call for faith, I was tempted to doubt. I was tempted to be too fearful to jump. But examining my doubts in that case would not have shown them to be logical, unless it would have been good for me to stay up on the roof in my terror.

As I pen these words I have metastatic cancer. I still do not know the day of my death, but I have sound reason to believe in my own mortality. I may not be close enough to the edge of that cliff to panic. But I know I will be tempted to be terrified when the time comes. That is the natural emotional response to this final leap of faith. But the best reasoned response I can make at this point is to trust God’s words to me, and keep my eyes fixed on Him.

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WHAT DO YOU WANT?

Question #3

“What do you want, and why do you want it?”

You may be thinking this question does not fit with the others. But it does. Many of our conclusions are affected more by our wants than by our reasoning. I recently heard a joke about a guy who decided he should not eat donuts. But he was finding it very difficult to hold his donut free conviction. And in his struggle he said, “Maybe God just doesn’t want me to stop eating donuts. So he decided that if there was an empty parking space in front of the donut shop when he passed, that would be a sign from God that he was not to stop eating donuts. “And sure enough,” he reported to his small group, “on the fourth time around the block . . .”

What we want influences what we think. And it is important to examine our wants and the reasons for them as we are trying to determine the truth.

In his book, Ends and Means, Aldous Huxley wrote, “I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption.”

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THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CHRISTIAN AND A NON-CHRISTIAN WRITER

A young doctor once told me about attending a symposium of Christian physicians. He said they raised the question, “What is the difference between a Christian doctor and a doctor who is not a believer?” Their conclusion was simply that a Christian doctor prays for his patients.

I can think of a number of spiritual gifts and spiritual fruit that God might use through a Christian physician. And I suspect some doctors who are not necessarily committed Christians pray at least occasionally for their patients. Still, I suspect they touched the heart of the matter simply out of years of practicing medicine.

Thinking of this made me wonder about the difference between a Christian writer and one who does not believe. I do not want to minimize Christian subject matter. But I think there are differences beyond what we write about. There will be some difference between a Christian journalist and one who does not know the Lord. What about a travel writer? What about a restaurant critic? I believe two differences are foundational; whom we trust and whom we please and honor.

Two ferry boats cross a river. One runs along a cable stretched across the water. The other does not. When the river runs smoothly, the operator of the one without the cable claims his fairy moves faster. And that may be true, although I'm am not sure. But when the river is raging the one without the cable will be swept away in the flood.

A writer who knows Christ has an anchor of meaning and confidence in the sovereignty of God that a writer who does not know the Lord does not have. That is not to say that she is not bewildered by evil or unfairness. A Christian writer may write about evil or tragedy that she has no answer for. But beneath everything she has a confidence that that there is an answer and God knows the solution even when we do not. A Christian writer may suffer from writer's block. But she knows that she can pray for inspiration.

Most of you are far too young to remember the television series The Millionaire. In it Michael Anthony, played by actor Marvin Miller, was “the confidential secretary to the trillionaire John Beresford Tipton.”  Each week on the show at the philanthropist’s Direction he gave a million dollars to an unsuspecting recipient. While Michael Anthony gave wonderful things, a million dollars, a much greater fortune in 1955 than it is now, he did not work for them. He worked for the eccentric trillionaire. He obeyed his direction. The checks were drawn from the wealthy man’s bank account. And the secretary had to please  him and him alone.

A Christian writer ultimately writes to please God. God is the source of her insight. He is the one who calls her to write. I am not focusing on how a Christian ought to write. Although we seldom get all of this together, these are fundamental principles of belonging to Christ. A Christian writer seeks to speak from God and for God. She seeks to honor God rather than herself. And in this motive the truth of what she has to say is anchored.

In John 7:18 Jesus said,

“He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.”

Who are you writing for?

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CHRISTIAN AND A NON-CHRISTIAN WRITER

A young doctor once told me about attending a symposium of Christian physicians. He said they raised the question, “What is the difference between a Christian doctor and a doctor who is not a believer?” Their conclusion was simply that a Christian doctor prays for his patients.

I can think of a number of spiritual gifts and spiritual fruit that God might use through a Christian physician. And I suspect some doctors who are not necessarily committed Christians pray at least occasionally for their patients. Still, I suspect they touched the heart of the matter simply out of years of practicing medicine.

Thinking of this made me wonder about the difference between a Christian writer and one who does not believe. I do not want to minimize Christian subject matter. But I think there are differences beyond what we write about. There will be some difference between a Christian journalist and one who does not know the Lord. What about a travel writer? What about a restaurant critic? I believe two differences are foundational; whom we trust and whom we please and honor.

Two ferry boats cross a river. One runs along a cable stretched across the water. The other does not. When the river runs smoothly, the operator of the one without the cable claims his fairy moves faster. And that may be true, although I'm am not sure. But when the river is raging the one without the cable will be swept away in the flood.

A writer who knows Christ has an anchor of meaning and confidence in the sovereignty of God that a writer who does not know the Lord does not have. That is not to say that she is not bewildered by evil or unfairness. A Christian writer may write about evil or tragedy that she has no answer for. But beneath everything she has a confidence that that there is an answer and God knows the solution even when we do not. A Christian writer may suffer from writer's block. But she knows that she can pray for inspiration.

Most of you are far too young to remember the television series The Millionaire. In it Michael Anthony, played by actor Marvin Miller, was “the confidential secretary to the trillionaire John Beresford Tipton.”  Each week on the show at the philanthropist’s Direction he gave a million dollars to an unsuspecting recipient. While Michael Anthony gave wonderful things, a million dollars, a much greater fortune in 1955 than it is now, he did not work for them. He worked for the eccentric trillionaire. He obeyed his direction. The checks were drawn from the wealthy man’s bank account. And the secretary had to please  him and him alone.

A Christian writer ultimately writes to please God. God is the source of her insight. He is the one who calls her to write. I am not focusing on how a Christian ought to write. Although we seldom get all of this together, these are fundamental principles of belonging to Christ. A Christian writer seeks to speak from God and for God. She seeks to honor God rather than herself. And in this motive the truth of what she has to say is anchored.

In John 7:18 Jesus said,

“He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.”

Who are you writing for?

WRITING IN THE AFTERMATH

In a time of crisis a friend put her writing note on her front door to keep people from bothering her. “Writing In Progress; Please don’t disturb.” But she admitted to my wife and I that she was not trying to write. Have you ever been too unhappy or too sick to write? I suspect all of us have. And that is a shame. We get our deepest insights in suffering and sickness. You probably remember the quote from C.S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain, “Pain is God's megaphone.”

God often speaks most clearly through pain or illness, even if it is only a sinus infection. While you are hurting, you will often be too distracted to hear Him. So it is important to pray for insight as you begin to recover. Giving thanks ought to be natural in such a time. Thankfulness is also a key to insight. And it is important to spend time thinking about it while the memory is fresh, maybe still hurting some. This is a crucial time to read books like The Problem of Pain or Philip Yancey's books, Where is God When It Hurts, Disappointment With God, or The Gift of Pain. Even a good novel may mean more to you while you are recovering.

And this is a great time to write. I often get my best insights while I am writing. And that is an important time to touch the hearts of readers whether they are hurting or not.

http://thinkinginthespirit.blogspot.com/

http://watchinginprayer.blogspot.com/

http://writingprayerfully.blogspot.com/

http://daveswatch.com/