Seeing what's broken

I'm glad to have the time to rejoin the journey with Sarah and Jason and others through Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis.  This week we look at Book III Chapter 4 Morality and Psychoanalysis.  Here, Lewis says:

One last point.  Remember that, as I said, the right direction leads not only to peace but to knowledge.  When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him.  When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less.  A moderately bad mans knows he is not very good; a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right.  This is common sense really.  You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping.

So then it seems I am getting better
for each day I see more of my imperfection.
As His hand works filling chips
smoothing cracks
I notice my brokeness
in ways deeper, more profound.
May I not, all at once
view myself as whole
complete
only to find myself
more shattered than before.
I pray each day
for more surrender
each day to trust
more of the pieces to His care.
In imperfect brokeness
I am more truly His.

Stop by Jason's to see what others are sharing about this week's reading.

Visit Emily's to read prose of the broken, imperfect and redeemed.

Practicing in imperfection

This week in our journey through Mere Christianity we are looking at Book III Chapter 2 The "Cardinal Virtues".  These are prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude.  After describing each, C. S. Lewis writes:

We might think that the “virtues” were necessary only for this present life – that in the other world we could stop being just because there is nothing to quarrel about and stop being brave because there is no danger.  Now it is quite true that there will probably be no occasion for just or courageous acts in the next world, but there will be every occasion for being the sort of people that we can become only as the result of doing such acts here.

So these moments - days, months and years

pile one upon the other
each an opportunity, an exercise, a lesson
time and time again to learn how to live
in all our imperfection, virtuous, victorious
and when the day arrives
that we look into the face of true perfection
all striving will cease in glorious peace
when the voice we have strained to hear says
"well done, well done indeed come and enter into your rest
My good, My faithful one"

now, still in pieces, there is work to be done
lessons to be learned, and learned well
for who knows when will come our reward.

His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant Matthew 25:21a NKJV

Jason is hosting us this week at Connecting to Impact

linking also with Emily and the imperfect

He, not me...

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This week we finish Book II of Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis with Chapter 5 - The Practical Conclusion.  Here Clive writes:

This is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good.  They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or - if they think there is not - at least they hope to deserve approval from good men.  But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him.  He 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.

Any good in me
is not me
but He
Who loves me.
Yes, this is
my heart's confession
yes, this is
what I know of truth.
It is not me
that shines
but a mirror
of His brightness
but oh, underneath
that light
what goodness grows.

Jason is hosting us this week at Connecting to Impact.  Come join us as we journey on.

Moved by His hand

Our journey into Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis continues as Jason and Sarah lead us in Book II Chapter 4 The Perfect Penitent.  In the middle of trying to explain his views on why and how we need and receive salvation through Christ, Lewis penned these words:

Yes, but what do we mean when we talk of God helping us?  We mean God putting into us a bit of Himself, so to speak.  He lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think; He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another.  When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters; that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them.  We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it.

So stirs the desire of my heart
to be a willing pen in His hand

My heart is overflowing with a good theme; I recite my composition concerning the King; My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.  Psalm 45:1 NKJV

to surrender to His lead
as He shapes His will
within me, without me,
through me.

Anything of worth
or beauty
is that which He deposits
and what blessing
to be a vessel
where He might
choose His goodness
to dwell.

Not because of who I am
but to glorify His name
my spirit moves
to the beating of His heart.

Sarah is hosting us today at Living Between the Lines.

Higher ground

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I’m pressing on the upward way,

New heights I’m gaining every day;
Still praying as I onward bound,
“Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”
words by Johnson Oatman, Jr.

Think once again of a piano.  It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the "right" notes and the "wrong" ones.  Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or set of instincts; it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.  C.S. Lewis

Moral compass, higher ground, black and white, right and wrong.  C. S. Lewis continues to discuss the "thing" within us all that is drawn like a magnet to "be better".

I know, beyond knowing, in a deep place, that there is a seed, a core, something that is always right, something that is always true.  It is not created by the hand of man, it is often misunderstood by the mind of man and it seeks to lay hold of the heart of man.

It is the mind of Christ.  Today I am asking the Lord for His help, that I might be better able to surrender to His ways, to turn up the heat that I would be drawn, just like a moth to His flame.

for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2:16 NIV

Join Jason and Sarah as we press on in discussion of Mere Christianity.  This week the links are posted on Jason's blog.