Some Days are blue, that is why watching Narnia comes into view.
────୨ৎ────
────୨ৎ────
I cannot help but think while watching for how many times in my life now the movie, ‘The Chronicles of Narnia, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’, the scene where Peter, Lucy, Susan and the beavers pay a visit in Aslan’s Camp. The whole scene there is brimming with reverence to Aslan. By simply them entering the camp and as they wait for Aslan to come out from his tent, that very moment, all of Aslan’s soldiers bowed down, for the Pevensie’s, they might not know Aslan deeply as other Narnians, but they too, bowed down on their knees. THAT SCENE IS SO PRICELESS. Even if i am just watching it moves my heart how revere Aslan is. How respected. HOW honored and feared. AND despite that he is not a tame lion, his goodness makes his people come to HIM in fear and in awe.
And it made me think. It dawned on me that why can’t we Christians do the same thing to our GOD? Well, Lewis, the writer of Narnia intentionally uses Aslan as the literary figure of CHRIST. That makes more sense how such connection from the movie moved me. But the truth of the matter is, we do really HAVE a real figure of ASLAN in real life, outside of the screen and outside of the covers of those books. WE have a real, living GOD of the BIBLE. Where Lewis tried, on his capacity to introduce to us as the façade of Aslan, that is, our Triune GOD. The GOD of the BIBLE. THE GOD of the ancient of days. That Name is JESUS CHRIST.
It gives me this longing of how beautiful it is if we revere our GOD the same way as those characters in NARNIA revere Aslan. That they really were looking for ASLAN, and those who do not know him yet in that magical place would say he is everything they have ever heard of, with glisten eyes and bursting hearts of excitement. I cannot just stress enough how beautiful is that to think about. It makes me reassess my position towards my GOD as well. The audacity of me in just talking to my GOD when I just want to. LATELY, this realizing eventually cripples in me, making me want to set the tone of my living right. I have also observed few reasons why we Christians cannot revere our GOD the way HE should.
Maybe some of us are influence by some movements in vast array of Christianity. Some progressive Christians view GOD as an all loving GOD, setting aside the part where GOD is also just and has this weightful of reverence in HIM. Some of us only see HIM as liken to a genie in the bottle that every now and then grants our wishes, even more than three! Some of us has this view about GOD as this Someone like us and tolerates us even when we sin, and the we often use HIS grace to justify such shortcomings. And while it is true that we are battling with our sinful nature, our struggle with our weakness should be GREATER than our toleration of it.
Christianity these days are nothing but façade. So long as one is going to church and maybe even serving in the church despite their moral failings that are so obvious, sometimes, we overlooked that just because. I hope we learn to know GOD more, I mean, really. Even our walks with HIM is not perfect and never will be while we are in this world, but I hope at least, we revere HIM for who really HE is, and not just because HE grants things for us to enjoy, while maybe that is just but a part, a means to show HIS grace, but blessings or whatever, especially material possessions that are just passing, won’t be use as an end of serving HIM, because you know our GOD could not be manipulated. HE IS SOVEREIGN as HE is.
Honestly, maybe like some Christians too, I am picking up pieces of myself in trying to view GOD as what HE really is. As someone who came from a collective influence of progressive Christianity, it is so hard to get off the previous man-centered GOD I used to believe. But it is not as hard and as horrifying staying in the place where I see GOD only in the basis of my likings. I hope you have this burden too, I hope every one of us has this burden as we should. That if we only know GOD byWHO really HE is, I am convinced that everything in our lives will just be into perspective. BECAUSE in knowing HIM, in the lenses of Scriptures, begins wisdom, and wisdom into living.
Talking about Narnia, I came across from the same author scribbled this,
“A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word “darkness” on the walls of his cell. But God wills our good, and our good is to love Him (with that responsive love proper to creatures) and to love Him we must know Him: and if we know Him, we shall in fact fall on our faces. If we do not, that only shows that what we are trying to love is not yet God – though it may be the nearest approximation to God which our thought and fantasy can attain.”
-CS Lewis (THE PROBLEM OF PAIN).
Indeed, if we do not fall on our faces yet, or our direction of knowing HIM is not leading there, this might be the ripe time to reassess our faith. Do we really know GOD or we just swayed in knowing HIM as the ‘blesser’ in our lives, rather than HIM as the Creator and LORD all in all. To pull back from the scene where Narnians and the Pevensie’s siblings bowed down to Aslan, I hope, we as Christians, find the same reverence or more than that to our LIVING GOD, CHRIST the KING Who has now all authority in heavens and in earth.
Start small. Read the Scriptures not just as a daily motivational devotion. Read the New Testament in the lenses of the Old Testament, and go further in the other part of The Book of how and why the GOSPELS are written. More importantly, read everything knowing it only points to ONE— CHRIST. Do exegesis. If you are having a hard time, research on the internet of its history, writer, the tone of the passage and such. Journey your Christianity in not but a blind faith, journey it using your mind too, along with your heart. You can never know someone unless you have some sort of information about them, and at times, you will fall in love with a person more if you have information about them, especially their attributes….and for me, and maybe for Lewis too and some other writers in the Bible can attest the same— especially if these attributes are worthy of praise.
Only then, we can see GOD for WHO HE REALLY IS. We might never grasp WHO HE IS fully yet for now, but I hope these little glimpses of creations and the Truth of HIS words, the prophecies been fulfilled and lives been changed, I hope one of these can match a spark for us to see our GOD, where HE is revered and leave us always in awe same way as Narnians saw the Lion while seeing him in Aslan’s Camp.
It might be a beautiful start for us to be like HIM as well, slowly by slowly. Where greed, pride, bitterness could not foster, but kindness, long suffering, love, and self control, as we are ought to be like HIM in light of eternity.
Sincerely,
Kryz
P.S
Oh wow, it is June already. I hope you are doing just fine. May you find meaning in everything you do. Do not forget to have your favorite things with you. I meant with fave things are coffee, blanket, and maybe a book? You name! Stay sane. GOD BLESS YOU!