Why We Need Stories

We all love a good story. One that excites us, intrigues us, inspires us. One that stirs our emotions, asks us questions, and makes us think. We go to these stories for everything from entertainment to escape. We may not realize it, but I think that stories are huge in shaping us, teaching us, and changing us.

Stories are important. Well, more specifically, good stories are important; they affect us deeply, often when we are not even aware. They have tremendous potential to reveal otherwise incommunicable truths and questions, remind us of the importance of our own stories, and point to an even greater story.

Fictional stories, of all kinds, need to be told because they have the power to convey truths in a truly unique way. My creative writing teacher has said that good stories cannot be refined to a single statement; otherwise they would not need to be told. They can be summarized or explained, but the true potential lies in the narrative itself. Good stories are told because they have to be told, because they can communicate something in a way that nothing else can. Whether it is in film, music, or writing, story telling is crucial because it has the power to uncover things that cannot simply be stated.

They can also ask questions. Sometimes, a good story doesn’t give us the answer but rather asks a question in a unique way, a question that might only have been raised because of the story. Some stories might leave you blown away, or leave you mulling over the plot, or maybe struggling to figure out what happened (Interstellar, anyone?). While these things can be important to a good story, ultimately a good story taps into something very real, something bigger than the story itself, and leaves you asking questions.

I realize that I’m a bit behind the bandwagon, but I think the film Interstellar tells a story that does this very well. Not only did I find myself completely immersed in the complicated plot (still haven’t totally figured that one out), but I also left the theater prompted to think about some huge and important questions that the film brought up. Even in the farthest reaches of the universe, Interstellar tells a story that is deeply human. Even amidst an epic space expedition, quotes such as, “Love is the only thing that transcends time and space” bring the story to an intimate level, leaving you with both important truths and profound questions—ultimately doing exactly what a good story should do.

Stories can also increase our sense of wonder. Good storytellers often reveal beauty in a unique way and help us become more wonder-filled. And there’s a lot of value in wonder, in seeing the world with a fresh perspective, opening our eyes, and being amazed at the beauty. Life is often routine and as we get older, the childlike wonder that comes so naturally when we are young begins to fade. Stories help us regain that wonder. G.K. Chesterton puts it well in The Defendant. He says, “…the function of imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange; not so much to make wonders facts as to make facts wonders.” Stories have the power to make the simple things amazing—or rather, remind us that those simple things are amazing. These stories tell us tales that ignite our imagination in a world of unreality, not simply for imagination’s sake, but to show the wonder and the beauty in reality.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I think fictional stories can teach us a few things about our own stories. They show us that our own stories are of vital importance, and they open our eyes to the epic story that is taking place is our own lives. To quote Chesterton again, “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” Fairytales remind us that there is a huge, beautiful, and powerful story, of which our tiny stories get to take part—our little, individual stories that come together to tell of God’s redemptive plan, that piece together as God reveals himself in and through our stories.

The most powerful, most beautiful, and most epic story is being told through us—the story of God making His glory known and calling mankind to himself. Fictional stories remind us that we are part of one and point us to the biggest one. They illustrate the way that the little stories of our own lives weave together in the greatest story that God continues to unfold throughout all of eternity.

In the scheme of God’s entire redemptive story for mankind, our own stories barely scratch the surface. At the end of The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis reminds us that our stories, ultimately, are just little parts at the very beginning of a narrative that is infinitely greater. He writes, “And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

Our stories are just the beginning the very first page of a divine and eternal story.

Now go read a story.

C.S. Lewis – Honest and Open

I have read few things as deeply tragic and yet as profoundly beautiful as A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. He gives a genuine and devastating account of his intense struggle as he grieves the death of his wife. He honestly looks at his own grief, pain, and heartbreak and turns fully toward Christ. Like in many of his works, Lewis writes with an elegant simplicity, yet reaches incredible depth. His descriptions of his own emotion and experience are candid, open, and vulnerable—so vulnerable that he invites the reader to ask honest and hard questions. And yet, what might be so beautiful is that even when those questions are not answered, Lewis still finds hope—hope in drawing near to Christ. Lewis doesn’t pretend to know the answers or have the solutions, but he honestly recognizes his own struggles as he stands humbly before God.

Lewis is never one to give trite answers or cliché catch phrases. He is not afraid to be brutally honest. In A Grief Observed in particular, he openly admits that God seemed silent, absent even. In his grief he cried out, yet Lewis felt sure that God did not hear, that there was no response. Nothing could numb the pain. Yet in retrospect, he encounters God amidst this silence.

Lewis puts to shame our conventional understanding of grief—the understanding that says God has to test our faith so He can see what we’re made of, or so that we can prove ourselves to Him. While this may be rooted in truth, Lewis makes an essential distinction. Suffering shows us what we’re made of; God already knows. He knows us completely, but we barely know ourselves. Lewis says, “God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t…He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down” (52). God knows us completely, so our pain does not reveal anything to him. It does, however, reveal something to us; it reveals who we are, how we think, and why we act. Lewis is confident that God knows him thoroughly. It is he who does not know himself. His “house of cards” needs to be knocked down before something better can be built.

Even in grief, Lewis fully recognizes God’s sovereignty. The loss of his wife—devastating, tragic, and painful—was not the abrupt breaking of a relationship. It was not potential that was cut short. Rather, as Lewis so powerfully states, it was a love that was complete. It had fulfilled its purpose, and had to change. In spite of the debilitating pain, Lewis sees the story that is beginning to form. He is tempted to think of loss, “…as love cut short; like a dance stopped in mid-career or a flower with its head unluckily snapped off…”. This however, is not the case. He begins to understand that something even greater happens as his love for his wife encounters both a biting reality and a glorious transition. Speaking of death, he says, “It is not a truncation of the process but one of its phases; not the interruption of the dance, but the next figure” (49-50). His love was not stopped, but rather challenged, reshaped, and grown. It had completed what God intended.

And yet again, Lewis realizes that he does not have the answers, that he cannot solve the problem, that he is confused. And yet even amidst this confusion, he sees God working. He sees that his own insufficient perception of God needs to be changed, and that God himself is the one who changes it. He writes, “My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself.” He admits his own shortcomings. He does not know God as he should, and he recognizes God’s work in the pain—that God would use even our deepest despair so that we could know and see Him better.

Perhaps the best summation of Lewis’ experience with grief is this: “I need Christ, not something that resembles Him”

Musings From The Big Apple

Finally Here

We step off the bus into a hurried jungle of concrete, steel, and glass. The cold air bites our skin as we frantically wander the crowded sidewalks in search of the nearest subway station. Obvious newcomers, we make our way through the web that is the underground subway only to soon be separated by quickly closing train doors. Finally back together, we climb from the dreary tunnel back into the light of day, squinting our eyes and tightening our scarves as we stare in wonder at the structures towering around us. With necks strained upward and eyes wide, we cannot help but feel overwhelmed, amazed. I’m finally here, I think to myself. New York, the city of bright lights, tiny apartments, giant buildings, and busy streets.

The City That Never Sleeps really is an amazing place. Cities like this build some of the world’s greatest feats of architectural genius, create iconic works of art and culture, and contribute to society in positive and influential ways. New York has things like Broadway, Wall Street, Central Park, and the Statue of Liberty, places that have become tourist attractions for good reason. And yet, in the same city there are poverty stricken neighborhoods, organized crime, prostitution, homelessness, and more. Like many big cities, New York shows society at its best and at its worst. It is home to some of the wealthiest and most successful individuals in the world, and yet also home to families living in destitution, barely scraping by each day. It is a center of art and culture and yet served as the setting to some of the nation’s highest profile crime.

A Tale of Three Cities?      

Ironically, I was reading A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens during my time in the Big Apple. Set in London and Paris, A Tale of Two Cities unveils both the corruption and virtue amidst these two huge cities. A type of corruption and virtue that, I think, can even be seen today in places like New York. I could not help but draw a few parallels.

Dickens opens his novel with the famous line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” From the beginning of the story, Dickens establishes a tension. A tension between goodness and oppression, between love and hatred, between purity and corruption. Dickens writes in a way that is rivaled by very few authors (Hugo, I think, does something similar in Les Mis, but that’s for another time). Even while describing of the horrors of the French Revolution and the political, social, and economic turmoil at the time, he manages to skillfully tell a story laden with goodness and beauty.

The Worst of Times

Dickens is not afraid to tell us of the destitution of the time period. He describes a scene in the streets of Paris where a barrel of red wine spills onto the cobble stone sidewalk and the poor bystanders. Dickens likens the wine pooling in the streets to the blood yet to be spilt in the French Revolution. “The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street. It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet… and one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a night-cap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees—blood.” It’s a bit of a gruesome picture, really. Dickens is candid about the violence, turmoil and corruption among the dingy Parisian streets, truly showing the worst of times.

The Best of Times

            Even in spite of the horror about which Dickens is so clear, he contrasts it with a beautiful conclusion to the story. In the closing monologue, we see a depiction of some kind of new city, a city in which evil is no more. One of the story’s central characters, Sydney Carton, beholds this city as he is just moments away from his execution. “I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out…” A drastic change from the dark scenes earlier in the novel. I can’t help but notice the way Carton sees this idyllic city. It is almost heavenly, or at least redeemed and perfected.

Dickens is Good

Remember when I talked about New York? (You should– it was only a few paragraphs ago) I think that the timeless content in A Tale of Two Cities plays out even today, albeit in different ways, in New York and in our own culture. While it is safe to say that New York City in the 21^st century is in a significantly better place than was Paris in the late 18^th century, it is fascinating how Dickens offers a societal commentary that is still pertinent today. In New York you really do have “the best of times” and “the worst of times”. It may seem drastic, but I think it is true. There’s Wall Street, and there’s the Mafia. There’s Broadway theatre, and there’s prostitution. There’s Lady Liberty, and there’s the dilapidated slums. To put it simply, in cities you find so much more goodness, and yet so much more evil. It is in cities like Paris, London, and New York that you can find the pinnacle of a culture’s beauty and virtue, as well as the results of its corruption.

On an only slightly related note…

I really like the last line of the book, so here it is: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.”

Art is Important

The Church once inspired some of the greatest works of art in the world. It was Christianity that provided material for paintings, sculptures, and writings that have stood unparalleled throughout history. Pulling from the stories, figures, and themes of scripture, many artists in the Church displayed beautiful mastery of their craft in elaborate paintings, meticulous sculptures, and beautiful architecture. Even the Church itself revealed aesthetic beauty and artistic skill (think Sistine Chapel, or stained glass in Medieval Cathedrals). From the church has stemmed some of history’s most renowned art.

Today however, is a very different story. It seems that the church today has ceased to engage with and provide to culture in the way it used to. Not only have we stopped producing such art, but you could even say we have begun to discourage it.

Today, the church has a drastically different take on art as a whole. While the Church used to create some of the world’s finest art, now it seems that the only things we can squeak out are cheesy low budget films loaded with Christian catch phrases or worship music that sounds like a bad John Mayer cover. Good, unique, and beautiful art is often merely tolerated, smiled at from a distance, or pushed to the side. Artists seldom feel appreciated, validated, or at home in the church. Even if art is encouraged, rarely is it important.

Now, before I go further, allow me to clarify that I am in no way attacking or complaining about the church. I am simply calling attention to something that I believe is worth thinking about. Something that we, as a whole, should consider.

Art is important. It gives us opportunity to worship God in a few very unique ways—ways from which the church today might be able to benefit.

Firstly, it is a means by which we imitate the Creator. Both creation itself and the entire redemptive process reveal God as the ultimate artist. God did not have to create beauty, but one look at a sunset or mountain range tells us that he cares deeply about it.

His redemption of mankind shows the same thing. It shows a process in which he turns something ugly into something beautiful, a process that is profoundly creative. The Gospel tells of the ultimate Creator reaching out to His creation, communicating, and expressing.

In addition, I think there is something very valuable in the process itself, in doing things well, in making good art. God is most glorified by good work. As Dorothy Sayers explains, “Work must be good work before it can call itself God’s work…The only Christian work is work well done” (Sayers, “Why Work?”). Work that glorifies God is work well done. In the same way, God is glorified most by good art, art that has been done with craft and care.

Finally, art allows individuals to honor God by exercising what he has given them. To not utilize one’s skill would be to disuse something God has given. God does not give gifts that we may ignore them. He gives us gifts that we may use them, and use them well.

Not only do we glorify Him, but we also see Him. Art lets us see beauty, and thus see God, the source of all beauty. This means that Christians, of all people, should value art the most. Beauty expressed in art lets us both glorify and see God in fresh ways. Christian art does not have to be simply movies with direct application, books about the theology alone, or paintings of biblical figures. It can and should be beautiful pieces that ask important questions, unfold profound truths, or point to the ultimate goodness. Christians should strive to make art well, thus displaying God well—to do good work, to make beauty for the sake of beauty itself. Echoing the creative and redemptive work of the Trinity, art gives us, the Church, a chance to lift our eyes from the world and from ourselves that we may turn them to Christ.

We should seek to create new, unique ways to encounter, understand, and see the nature of God. We should strive to rethink, reimagine, and reshape our understanding His beauty. We should endeavor to make art that challenges ourselves and others to live better, art that calls the creation back to its Creator.

Lewis gets it: “For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory)

Connect, Don’t Compare

The world traveler. The happy couple. The party goer. The artist. The book reader. The hip coffee shop goer. Scroll through Instagram photos, Twitter updates, and Facebook statuses and you’re bound to see these seemingly perfect, exciting, and full lives. Afterward, you only feel dissatisfied with your own. Your own life feels average, mediocre, boring even, so you check Facebook to see the milestones and accomplishments of all your friends. You’re bored with your own relationship, so you like the photos of your friends on dates. Your own house seems ugly, so you design your ideal home on Pinterest. Everyone just seems more talented, more adventurous, more attractive, more creative, and more exciting than you.

Time and time again we use social media to escape the reality of our own lives. Our own normalcy seems pathetic in light of the shiny, perfect lives on Instagram. When our own lives are anything less than these “perfect” lives, we’re even more discontent. Daily life is a bore in comparison to the excitement others show off all over social media. We log off and wonder why nothing ever satisfies, why nothing seems exciting, why everything is hopeless.

Then, finally, you’re excited about something. You have to post about it. You have to share it. You need the validation of likes, the affirmation of comments on a screen. You finally have a Pinterest-worthy moment, and you feel that the only way in which you can truly experience it is by flaunting it online. You have to prove it everyone, to show off the perfect version of your self. You want to feel “connected” so you tell your hundreds of friends about your life milestone, your relationship, or your coffee.

Yet again life goes back to normal, and yet again you’re bored. If it’s anything less than the lives you see on Pinterest, it’s not good enough. Even when we are with our friends, we dread the silence and fear the stillness. We’ve grown so accustomed to a constant stream of noise that any lull in the conversation necessitates that we check our Instagram for the mini rush of adrenaline that comes from another like. We long for connection as we sit around the table with our faces lit by the soft bluish glow of our smart phones, but can never fully-devote our attention to those sitting across from us. Spending so much time drowning in the endless stream of “perfect” moments on Facebook, we forget how to connect in the average moments, the normal ones. We use social media as a one-way street between our own lives and the public world, seeking connection but finding none.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I find nothing inherently wrong with technology or social media. I have a Facebook account, I post photos on Instagram, and I use my smartphone regularly. However, I think we’ve stopped using these resources as tools for connection, and have begun using them for comparison. Rather than connecting to a community of people we love, we compare our own lives to the hundreds we find on our Facebook feeds, all of which seem to be loaded with excitement. Seeing the pretty lives on social media will always leave us dissatisfied because everyone posts about the highs, but never the lows. We use social media to display only our finest moments, never our worst. We feel like the only ones not traveling the world, not reading every book, or not dating the perfect person. It is no wonder this makes us discontent.

Good news: the beauty of life is not in witty Facebook statuses, perfectly composed twitter updates in less than 140 characters, or hip Instagram photos. The lives we want don’t even exist. The shiny Pinterest life is a sham. And that’s a good thing, because the real, the gritty, the messy, and the difficult life is infinitely more rewarding.

So let’s use social media to connect, not to compare to one another. To foster community, not to build carefully construed public images of the lives we want. “Life” will always look better on the Internet, but it’s never real. The exciting lives on social media are the lives people want others to think they have. Real lives, the everyday ones, the normal ones, the genuine ones, are where true community can flourish, not in the picture perfect moments on Instagram.

The best lives can’t be depicted in one photo, post, or update. And don’t even need to be.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Of the absurd amount of things I convinced myself I would achieve during Christmas break, I’ve done only a select few (namely, sleep and eat cookies). I have however, managed to do some reading, and even attempted to relearn a few songs on our old piano. As I fumbled through “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” by John M. Neale and struggled to make sense of Milton’s Paradise Lost, a few things stood out to me, particularly in light of the Christmas season.

In the words of the classic hymn, “Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.” While my unskilled fingers awkwardly searched for the right notes (thanks Mom and Dad, for bearing through my piano ineptitude), I could not help but notice the sense of longing throughout the song. Funny, I thought. We typically talk about, think about, and sing about Christmas in regards to Christ’s coming in the past. And rightly so. He has already come, He has already ransomed the captives, He has already brought joy.

Though, the more I thought about the lyrics of this hymn, I realized that Christmas can be a time in which we not only celebrate Christ’s coming, but also anticipate His return. In the same way that Israel yearned for the Messiah to come, we look forward to the return of Christ, when He will finally ransom the captives in full. The words of the hymn express our excitement, our longing for Christ’s final return when He will, “…drive away the shades of night, and pierce the clouds and bring us light”

Coincidentally, as I read Paradise Lost (and reread, and reread, and reread; the guy is intense), this truth was reflected perfectly. Retelling the epic story of redemptive history, Milton beautifully expresses what Christ accomplished on the cross, and what He will accomplish in his return. The unparalleled love of Christ offers us a future to anticipate, to long for. Milton writes, “He to appease thy wrath, and end the strife / of mercy and justice in thy face discerned, / Regardless of the bliss wherein he sat / Second to thee, offered himself to die / For man’s offense. O unexampled love / Love nowhere to be found less than divine!” (Book III, lines 406-410).

Because of this love we have hope for the future, a future for which we strive and yearn. Christmas is a time to remember what Christ has done, but also to look forward to what he will do. It is a time to pray the words, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.” (Isaiah 9:2).

Now go find the lyrics to the hymn and read them (or sing them, for those of you more vocally gifted then myself). Seriously, they’re really good. Merry Christmas.

Be Present

It happens to all of us. You spend days, weeks, months waiting for something, only to find out that it is nowhere near what you dreamed it to be. You spend all summer awaiting the release of the pumpkin spice latte, only to realize it isn’t even that good. You follow the movie franchise religiously, only to discover that The Avengers is just one long action scene. You trudge through nine seasons of How I Met Your Mother, only to be dissatisfied by the conclusion.

While these trivial things might be matters of unrealistic expectations or personal opinion, they seem to offer a morsel of insight into our thinking. We always look forward to the future, anticipate what could happen next, and yet are often sorely disappointed.

Come to think of it, this type of thinking is often reflected in our entire lives. In my own life, I’ve realized I live for the excitement and anticipation of the next big thing. Who doesn’t? We look to the future for things to improve and we live for the next milestone, never completely content with the present. Living in the unreality of the future and treating our current stage as a waiting period, we yearn for the landmarks of life.

Living this way, however, can be detrimental. If all we live for is the next milestone, what happens when it’s not what we thought? What happens when it doesn’t satisfy us? What happens when those landmarks fall apart? We’re certain that the next thing will be better. And yet it isn’t. We’re certain that we’ll finally be content. And yet we aren’t.

I’ve come to realize I will not be content in the future if I am not content in the present. We don’t know what the future will hold. All we know is what we have: the present. Living in such anticipation of the future can make us hurry through the present, never stopping to appreciate the joys and struggles it has to offer. The present, ultimately, is the sole thing we have; the past is unchangeable and the future is uncertain.

But what does this mean? How can we be fully present?

Being fully present means fully investing in the people around us. It means being honest, truly seeing another person. I like the way Thornton Wilder, renowned American Playwright, illustrates this. In the final scene of Our Town, Emily Webb looks back at her life and regrets that she did not even see those around her. She begs her mother, “Just for a moment now we’re all together…just for a moment let’s be happy—let’s look at one another!”

Being fully present means that we are vulnerable. It means that we open ourselves up to love people, genuinely and completely. In contrast to the rushed and closed off lives Wilder depicts in Our Town, to be present in life is to be present with people. It is to see, really see, the people around us.

Being fully present means fully embracing the joys and struggles life throws at us. This type of life finds a true contentment even in the difficulty. Engaging fully in the present allows us to find a unique happiness. I just finished reading Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables (after what seemed like an eternity), and he captures this life beautifully. He says, “Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and grief!” Living fully present lets us embrace both the joys and the pains. Even amidst the struggles, as Hugo explains, there is a genuine happiness in being present and living honestly.

Being fully present is only possible if we have hope. As Christians, our hope is in Christ. It is in the knowledge that we will one day partake of His glory and bask in His holy presence. We will never be content until our salvation is complete and we worship our Savior in eternity. This, and only this, is the future for which we live. Because of this hope we can truly love those in the present. This hope frees us up to love fully.

When we live for the next landmark, we forfeit the joy to be had in the day. We lose out on loving people, on engaging with them, on being with them. We are created to love people, and we cannot do so when our minds are fixed on the future. So go ahead. Make plans, get excited, have goals, dreams. Just don’t let those dreams cost you the present. Let your hope be in Christ, that you may love fully and freely. In the words of the great Albus Dumbledore, “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live”.

The Chronicles of the Harry Games Saga

I’ll be honest. When it comes to books like The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games, I am quite a groupie. The excitement, the suspense, the lovable characters…it’s difficult not to get sucked into the vortex of young adult fiction. Children, teens and adults everywhere are fans of these captivating books and recent big-screen hits. But what is it that makes these hugely popular franchises so successful? What is it that makes people love these stories so much?

The answer, in my opinion, is that all these books are about ordinary individuals doing extraordinary things. Readers enjoy a book focusing on a character not so different from themselves. In Narnia, C.S. Lewis depicts four normal siblings staying at a boarding house who are thrown into a magical land where they must defeat an evil witch and her army, and then become kings and queens. In Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling tells us of a lonely orphan boy mistreated by his Aunt and Uncle, who discovers he is the most famous individual in the world of wizardry. In The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins tells a story through the eyes of a poor teenage girl who is struggling to provide for her fatherless family, survives a futuristic gladiator match, and becomes the face of a nation’s rebellion.

Because people can identify with these relatable heroes in today’s popular fiction, authors have captured audiences young and old alike. Authors like Lewis, Rowling and Collins, create characters who are ordinary and make them do the extraordinary. Really, this is what makes any story likable, what makes bestsellers and blockbusters. It’s the story of the underdog, a normal individual who faces incredible circumstances and becomes the unlikely hero.

Know Christ

Jesus is amazing. Knowing Him should the one of the biggest goals of a believer. A true follower of Christ strives to fix their eyes upon Him above all else. The Christian life should not be motivated by a desire to “live up” to the call of Christ but rather complete dependence upon the Grace of God, and a recognition of the all-surpassing worth of Christ. In Philippians, Paul writes, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Phil. 3:7-8). Our lives are to be characterized by continually understanding the great worth of knowing Christ, and learning to be amazed by His glory. We are called to abandon ourselves and our accomplishments for the sake of knowing Christ. Why? Because He’s worth it, because He’s amazing, and because that is the very reason for which we were created.

Love Without a Reason

If you know me at all, you probably know I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to books by authors like C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton (or any good book for that matter!). Even after reading a book once, upon re-reading it I am able to see so much that I had not noticed before. Like most book-lovers, I get excited when I find connections and similarities between books.

One such connection I found between Lewis’ Mere Christianity and Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. In Orthodoxy, Chesterton makes a case for an attribute of true love in the context of loyalty to one’s country. He argues that one’s love for his home should be genuinely for the place itself, rather than for a ‘reason’. He writes, “The man who is most likely to ruin the place he loves is exactly the man who loves it with a reason. The man who will improve the place is the man who loves it without a reason”. This love, according to Chesterton, should flow from no other reason than a deep affection for the place itself.

Similarly, in a greater sense, C.S. Lewis articulates this aspect of true love; the kind of love that God demonstrates toward us. A love that is completely unrelated to our own abilities. Lewis explains that it is only through God’s love that the Christian can grow. The love that the Creator shows us is not a result of our goodness, but it is through His love that we are made good. Lewis states, “The Christian…does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because he loves us; Just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it”. This truth is central to our lives as Christians. Nothing in ourselves can make us grow, but it is only through God’s love that we are made better.

Love without a reason; this is the most difficult, but deepest form of love. It is the love that Christ has shown us. It was and is God’s choice to love us, His children; on our own we are completely unworthy of His affection, but through His great love we become lovely.