Embrace the Journey

”Some journeys take us far from home. Some adventures lead us to our destiny.” — C.S. Lewis

Many times, God sets us upon a journey to see if we are willing to allow Him to lead. I was looking through my blog a couple of days ago and noticed this quote by CS Lewis was the first thing I had ever posted. When I first felt the call to ministry, I engrossed myself into reading CS Lewis. It impressed me that he went from being a complete unbeliever to a great theologian. I wanted to know as much about him as I could learn. I wanted to know how someone could turn a 180 and change his view completely.

If you don’t know anything about CS Lewis, let me shed some light on his life. He grew up as a Christian in a good Christian family, but later, turned into an atheist because he got angry with God. He didn’t understand how a good God could allow so much hurt into the world.

I think many of us have struggled with that same thing. We grow up with the background. We have the foundation of knowing the Bible stories and being introduced to God. But then we have doubts. We struggle with how to find answers. We often get on a path that takes us far from home.

Thankfully, Lewis didn’t stop there. Or at least God didn’t stop there. See, God is relentless in His pursuit for us. CS Lewis became best friends with JRR Tolkien. Tolkien was a strong Christian who slowly led Lewis back into a relationship with Christ. The process wasn’t easy. It came through conversations and debates. Lewis debated his side and Tolkien countered with his. Lewis described his resistance as “kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting eyes in every direction for a chance to escape.”

Slowly, Lewis realized, according to his own words, that “God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.” God also sends gentle, prodding friends into our lives to lead us on our journeys toward him. Even if we are on a path that is taking us far from home, Proverbs 16:9 assures us that even though “A man’s heart plans his way, the Lord determines his steps.”

Even though Lewis turned down a path that led him astray, God had already predetermined his steps to lead him to someone who could direct him back. Lewis describes his moment of release in his book “Surprised by Joy” as “I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

So, what lesson can we learn from this great man and his story? CS Lewis got angry with God. Several times throughout my life, I have been so angry with God that I didn’t understand what He was doing. I didn’t understand how a good God could care so much about me and allow something so bad to happen. But that’s where faith comes in. We have to trust that the bad might be roadblocks or course corrections for our lives. Things that we perceive as “bad” at the time are actually things God is working for good in the future.

We also have to trust that God will send the people into our lives that will lead and grow us. JRR Tolkien was an essential catalyst for CS Lewis’s faith. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)

“Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth ‘thrown in’: aim at Earth and you will get neither.” — CS Lewis