My mother lent me a book of daily readings by C.S. Lewis at Christmas and, though we initially forgot to take it back to Michigan with us, I'm trying to get into the habit of reading the selection for each day. She worked her way through it last year because, as she reminds us often, Lewis was her grandfather's favorite author. I'm already eager to read wholes from which these pieces were culled.
All of this is to give you fair warning that I'll probably be quoting Lewis quite often in the near future and I'll most likely take him completely out of context (as I'm merely reading excerpts).
Today's reading struck an interesting parrallel with Abraham Kuyper's famous quote:
There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry "Mine!"
Lewis, though coming from an angle of piety, echoes these sentiments:
What cannot be admitted--what must exist only as an undefeated but daily resisted enemy--is the idea of something that is "our own," some area in which we are to be "out of school," on which God has no claim.
For He claims all, because He is love and must bless. He cannot bless us unless He has us. When we try to keep within us an area that is our own, we try to keep an area of death. Therefore, in love, He claims all. There's no bargaining with Him.
--from "A Slip of the Tongue" (The Weight of Glory)
It's difficult to imagine what a wholly transformed life might look like, and yet that's exactly what we're called to. The implications, both personal and communal, are absolutely staggering.
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