C.S. doesn’t BS

Until last year the reading a book would perhaps be the last thing you would find me partaking in on a Friday night…but my friends, God has been ever-changing me…removing my apathetic deeds of insignificance and replacing them with others that more clearly serve His purposes. A newfound love and aptitude for reading is just one example. I have especially grown fond of a Mr. C.S. Lewis (particularly the book Mere Christianity, which is up to this point in my life the most inspiring and enlightening books I’ve ever read). Tonight I read another one of his classic novels, The Great Divorce. This book is a response to William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and in the book Lewis explores biblical and extra-biblical ideas about Heaven and Hell. He would be the first to admit that much of it is speculative but is reasonable and thought provoking. One of his most interesting assertions is that Hell is not simply a place where those unsaved souls are held hostage but rather a place of their own making. He hypothesizes that perhaps it isn’t so much that they are forced to Hell but rather they choose it, even given an opportunity to look upon Heaven they still do not find it desirable because they have built a life on themselves or on ‘stuff’ and thus have no idea what they would do in heaven. Just as an undisciplined ignorant fool would have no use or desire for a university. Some of his guestimations also suggest possible scenarios, for those who had no formal opportunity to accept Christ in this life to be given opportunity to do so. Here’s a cool quote:

The whole difficulty of understanding Hell is that the thing to be understood is so nearly Nothing. But ye’ll have had experiences…it begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps criticizing it. And yourself, in a dark hour, may will that mood, embrace it. Ye can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine. (In Lewis’ mind even the littlest most insignificant of choices throughout our lives will gradually make us either a creature fit only for Heaven or solely for Hell)

P.S. If you don’t enjoy reading I admonish you to endeavor to. I don’t see how a person can truly grow efficiently without a discipline for it, after all, the very Word of God is encased within the context of a book and we must certainly be avid students of the Scriptures! And for those pursuing ministry I don’t see how there can be any way around reading. We are blessed to have so many resources at our fingertips, blessed to be able to read the thoughts/sermons/summations of great minds wholly devoted to Christ and shame on us if we don’t take advantage of such an opportunity. I have little respect for the minister who has no aspirations to monthly/weekly/daily desires to better himself and pursue greater proficiency in knowing God, His Word, and His creation more completely.

I’m gone.