Tuesday, January 13, 2009

The Weight of Glory

This essay was slightly more difficult to relate to my life than some of the previous essays we have read because I do not associate my life with glory on a daily basis. On page one of Lewis' essay he says, "We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire." In this sense Lewis is describing good desires that we, as Christians, are supposed to harbor as a means to grow. I do not typically associate desire with good. I associate desire with longings that are not pleasing to God so in a way this statement that we are to have desires is confusing to me.

I liked Lewis' explanation of the 'schoolboy' and the illustration that we all start somewhere and that we cannot appreciate what he are doing now because we are so short sighted and cannot see the reward our current efforts will bring us in the future. Christianity is a journey and just like everything else in life it must be learned step by step.

I also liked Lewis' explanation of heaven. In the essay he states, "Heaven is, by definition, outside our experience, but all intelligible descriptions must be of things within our experience." In other words, we cannot possibly fathom what heaven will be like because it will be like nothing we have experienced our whole lives. It will be so much better that there are not even words to describe it.

When Lewis writes about the "promises of Scripture" he says that we shall have "glory". He goes on to further explain his outlook on glory but in all of his explanations and illustrations I still do not understand how we can achieve glory. I've always learned and thought that glory was reserved for God. The idea that we, as humans, can attain glory is a strange concept for me. I do not feel glorified nor do I feel I deserve to be glorified. However, from Lewis' perspective it seems as if we all are allotted that glory and should take advantage of that as it is supposedly one of our deep desires. I personally do not desire glory but perhaps that is the problem and the reason I do not understand Lewis' point of view. In my small group today we talked a great deal about pride and how it can get in the way of our own personal glory and keep us from Christ. Maybe I am too prideful in myself to accept that I could be filled with God's glory. This is something I will have to work on.

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