But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away ‘blindly’ so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it.
Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952; Harper Collins: 2001) 223-225.
Thank you for the timely reminder, may God bless you.
ReplyDeleteDr Kay, Welcome to Mere C.S. Lewis.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your encouraging comment. I hope you come back to read more Lewis.
Dr Kay, Welcome to Mere C.S. Lewis.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your encouraging comment. I hope you come back to read more Lewis.
Wow! This thought is so incredibly profound sir ...and yet so simple and childlike! We "grow up" and begin hoarding what we can't possibly keep in life forgetting the childlike faith and instinctive assurance that all our needs are met ...free of any worry, anxiety and fear. If we could just realize we were actually His little child and not some underpriviledged orphan that doesn't belong ...than there would be no reason or desire to "hold on" to all the baggage that comes with being a beggar. Amazing!
ReplyDeleteHi Jeb. It still amazes me at times how C.S. Lewis is able to make such profound points like this so often. Thanks for posting your comment and welcome to Mere C.S. Lewis.
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