Monday, November 12, 2012

The Last Battle


“The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.” ~ C.S. Lewis

I finished reading The Last Battle on Saturday morning. I’d begun it towards the end of the summer in preparation for a sermon, but had left the last chapter unread. It’s the chapter wrapping the entire Chronicle of Narnia series up; bringing it to a close with one tremendous repeated line, “Further up and further in.”

It’s easy to loose sight of the goal, the aim. Through curves in the road and the tall hedges, mountains or the sea, we don’t always have a clear view of the end. But there are times when we see it, when we know exactly where our aim is and why it should be there, when all of life falls into place and we run further up and further into the plan and glory of God.

But the opposite of this is true too. When we don’t see. When we don’t desire God. When we have tried to replace him with title, lovers, family, events and the like. When our defining point is an unsettled heart. Even still we are traveling further up and further into the plan and the glory of God, though it might feel like a trudge rather than a run.

Yet we aim to be satisfied by God. No. We earnestly hope with a longing expectation to be satisfied by God.

We know this is the dream, and the night is far-gone. We know a new day will come and shine out all the brighter. We know the term is far spent and the freedom of the holidays is upon us. But they are not here yet and thus we fight the good fight of faith. Thus we lean upon our band of brothers, those fellow Christians, to carry us down the road just a little further to see both the beauty of the Savior and what we’ve been saved from.

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