"Life has never been normal"
This quote from C.S. Lewis at first seemed to me to be humorous, and then once I started thinking about after we had watched the video of the woman in Brazil I started to feel sad. I started to apply this outside my life personally. I thought that while I sat in the classroom today, there were soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq fighting for their lives and my freedom. There were people in Brazil, Haiti, and many other places around the world just praying that God would get them through the day. I think how sad it is that our world has become this way, but what am I doing to help? I know that as a college student I am limited, or is that an excuse I am using? Lewis points out that yes things are going horribly wroung in our world, and people do make the excuse that they cannot stay in a classroom and learn because they are being called to save the world. However, we think that by donating money we will save the world which is not true. We need to be missionaries and spred the wonderful news of God.
"How can you be so frivolous and selfish as to think about anything but the salvation of human souls?"
How often do we as Christians even go a day without thinking about our own eternity? Not only do we fail to be concerned with our own souls, except for maybe on Sunday, but we are not even thinking about the souls of others. Yet, we are called as Christians to go out and spread the news of "great joy that will be for all the people."
We are called to live for God because he is infinite, he is what will be beyond the sorrows of this world. "Christianity does not simply replace our natural life and substitute a new one: it is rather a new organization which exploits to its own supernatural ends, these natural materials." Too often we dedicate living this life to things that are finite "The rescue of drowning men is then a duty worth dying for, but not worth living for." Lewis explains that yes, it is important to do what we can to preserve the precious gift of live, but because there is an eternity the only thing we can dedicate our life to is God.
I like the whole, "How often do we think about our souls," thing. We do not receive full joy unless we do steadfastly check ourselves and our souls.
ReplyDeleteI think we are indeed selfish. We are too concerned with playing in the mud and are not aware of our gloomy disposition as Lewis puts it.
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