Holding or Taking Hold

I’ve been reading my favorite C.S. Lewis book with my daughter. The Great Divorce. The title has nothing directly to do with marriage but rather the “distance” between Heaven and Hell. The story is a fanciful trip from the edge of Hell up to visit the edge of Heaven. The edge of Hell is a twilight place where it is growing darker. Since no one gets along well they move further and further apart to avoid the quarreling, cursing, and tussling. Materially they can have anything they want just by imagining it, but it has no real substance. Most have houses but the rain penetrates right through ceilings and walls, making them only useful for a false sense of safety. Safety from some unnamed, fearful thing that is coming.

Upon arrival at the edge of heaven they find themselves to be ghosts who are not yet solid enough to participate in heaven yet. They are embarrassed and frustrated by the inability to feel comfortable and move about easily. Solid folks from deeper heaven have come to meet with each of the ghosts to see if they will stay and become more solid as they enter into heaven.

All of the ghosts face obstacles that have to do with what they demand or cling to for meaning and purpose. A mother’s love, self-respect, ambition, rights, grumbling, materialism, cynicism—some are almost convincing and would even appear noble in the right context. But they must be willing to give up all in order to enter into the vast wild wonder of heaven. Sadly, many do not and opt to return to the twilight world that soon will be dark.

My daughter asks “how can do you give it all up, how do you do that?” How indeed. . . .

One of the last stories is of an oily looking ghost with a little red lizard on his shoulder that keeps whispering things in his ear. The ghost tries hard to make the lizard shut up, as its “stuff won’t do here,” but as he cannot he says he will just return to the twilight place. When a light-filled being asks if he may kill it, the ghost finds all manner of excuses to try to avoid that, saying how unnecessary it is. In the end the ghost is certain he will die, yet with a terrified scream lets the angel kill it. The man is completely transformed to a glorious new person, and the dead lizard is brought back as a powerful stallion to carry him swiftly far up into heaven.

One of the things Lewis grasps so vividly is how desperate and terrible the struggle is to yield what seems completely necessary. And how marvelous the freedom and glory when we do.

Last week Daryl Fenton challenged us:

“No one can decide for you; that regenerated spirit within you can chose to cooperate with the Holy Spirit or can chose to ignore Him. . . . And you’re either going to say, ‘I want to join the mission, I want to be in the front lines, I will, in fact, support the work going forward, in prayer. I’ll beg the Lord and the Holy Spirit to fall like fire on this place, and I’ll keep doing it until He listens and I’m willing to make any change in my life He requires of me so that it might be accomplished. I’m prepared to sacrifice things for the joy that lays before me just like Hebrews says Jesus did.’”

“Have you asked the Spirit to empower you, and is Jesus the master, Lord of the universe who redeemed you from both sin and death—are you awestruck in his presence? And as such are you prepared to persuade others about him, to spend your life seeking to please him because you’d rather live for him than live for you?”

Thursday night on a DVD Randy Clark asked “What do you want (really want) and what are you willing to risk to grasp it?” The Lord is holding out the fullness of the Kingdom to us.

Under the Mercy . . .