Dear Friends,

And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches (2 Cor 11:28).

Paul is the apostle who famously wrote, “Do not worry about anything” (Phil 4:5). Yet, here he is confessing to anxiety, something that Scripture is adamant against. The most frequent command uttered by Jesus Christ on this earth was “Don’t be afraid.” David wrote, “I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears” (Ps 34:4).

There are obviously a lot of things on Paul’s mind. The “other things” he references in our text are his experiences of imprisonment, flogging, stoning, shipwrecks, floods, bandits, persecution by Jews, persecution by Gentiles, urban crime, wilderness survival, betrayal by associates, sleep-deprivation, hunger, thirst, and destitution (2 Cor 11:23-27). Paul would score over the top on any stress test, but that’s not what has him worried.

He’s concerned about the churches that he’s established in cities around the Mediterranean. That doesn’t mean buildings. Architecture can express praise and evoke reverence, but it never led a soul to the Lord despite the fortunes spent on it.

Paul is concerned about the Body of Christ composed of the men, women, boys, and girls in homes and store fronts who have listened to Paul and his companions in ministry and have been persuaded to commit their lives and fortunes to Christ. Their congregations are assemblages of Jews and Gentiles, males and females, slave and free, barbarian, Scythian, circumcised and uncircumcised, for whom devotion to Christ has become the focus of their lives united them despite their differences (Gal 3:28; Col 3:11).

These Christ-followers are learning and growing in the encouragement and nurture of little communities of faith in very hostile environments. They are misunderstood and persecuted and vulnerable to internal dissension as they learn what it means to live and worship Christ together.

Paul knows that the stresses of economic hardship and persecution can distract the churches from Jesus and cause the believers to turn on each other in desperation. Paul prays for them continually, takes up collections for their support, and encourages them with letters. He visits them whenever he can, given the challenges of 1st Century A.D. travel and the demands on his time.

He loves the believers and their congregational outposts of “the Way.” Their burdens become his burdens. “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I am not indignant?” (2 Cor 11:29).

Thank God for leaders who are concerned about their people, more than their personal interests or professional accomplishment. Leadership is first and only about people. It isn’t about facilities, endowments, manuals, equipment, hardware, or software. The priorities of leadership are nurture and teaching for transformed lives, not arrogant displays of cleverness, arbitrary assertions of authority or ethically blind insistence on ideological purity. If a leader isn’t anxious for the welfare of his or her people, the title of “leader” is undeserved.

More than that, the leader has to be concerned about keeping his people together which, in best practice, involves the leader’s example, credibility and persuasion and the follower’s responsive choice, freely made.

Somewhere along the line of Paul’s transformation from the fire-breathing, murderous Saul of Tarsus to being an apostle of the Gospel,  Jesus convicted Paul that one was the best number as in “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all” (Eph 4:4). Paul came to realize that for the body to be one and stay one required “making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4:3).

True unity and the peace that is inherent to it are gifts of the Spirit, but the effort necessary to maintain it requires a focus on Christ. The minute the believers took their eyes off of Christ and started watching each other arguments and divisions started occurring in the churches.

Paul is, above all, attentive to this problem of focus on Christ and urges the believers to stay the course. “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (Col 2:6-7). For Paul, thanksgiving is an essential spiritual discipline because it keeps the heart focused on the Gift-giver with humility and gratitude.

The anxiousness of Paul for the welfare of the churches and his loving attention to their needs is a demonstration of Jesus’ teaching, “No one has greater love than this, to lay one’s life down for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Devotion in the relationship of leader and follower is most often discussed in terms of the devotion of the follower to the leader and the mission, but a great leader is devoted to the well-being of the people in the leader’s care and responsibility.

Jesus told a famous story about a shepherd who left ninety-nine, well-behaved and secure sheep, to find one that had wondered off and was lost and perhaps injured. The shepherd found it and was thrilled to do so. Instead of scolding the sheep for its waywardness, the shepherd lifted it up to his shoulders and carried it to a “welcome home” party with his friends and neighbors. Jesus said that’s how heaven reacts whenever a sinner repents (Luke 15:3-7). It also describes the kind of leadership that God expects.

Is there anything more heartbreaking than a leader who says, “Let’s keep the people who aren’t giving us any trouble and write off the rest of them?” In Jesus’ style of leadership, “the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame,” and those wandering around aimlessly on the roads and the lanes are worthy of inclusion in fellowship (Luke 14:21-24). Jesus writes off no one. That means hard, prayerful, thoughtful work for the leader who follows Jesus’ call, but is anyone really being led if leadership is easy?

Paul was right to be anxious for all the churches. A good leader wants to see all his people make it home.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

P.S. If you received this it is because you requested it or someone you know passed it on to you. If you wish to continue to receive this weekly meditation, simply send an email to me at khansen@claysonlaw.com with the word “subscribe,” or tell whoever forwarded it to you to keep sending it.

If you do not wish to receive any more of these messages, please send an email to khansen@claysonlaw.com with the word, “unsubscribe.” This only works if you received the message from me directly. If someone else forwards the message to you and you want them to stop, please email them back and tell them to stop sending it. Thanks.

The post A Word of Grace – May 13, 2013 appeared first on Living the Legacy of C.S. Lewis.

Dallas was a long-time friend of the C.S. Lewis Foundation, serving on both the Foundation’s board and the C.S. Lewis College’s Council of Distinguished Fellows.  But far beyond that, Dallas was a personal friend to the Foundation’s President, Dr. Stan Mattson.  Their friendship began while both were graduate students at the University of Wisconsin, and lasted up to the present.  Dallas was always a firm supporter of the vision of the Foundation and C.S. Lewis College. In addition to being a generous and faithful donor, he once shared that he prayed for us daily.

We ask that you keep his family in prayer in this season of grieving so great a loss.

Dallas firmly believed that death was “nothing” to the godly, and that what lay beyond it was infinitely great.  We can note with joy–but not without sorrow–that Dallas is now a citizen of the Kingdom that he wrote about with such passion.

The post Announcing the Passing of Dallas Willard, A Good Friend and Advisor appeared first on Living the Legacy of C.S. Lewis.

Dear Friends,

The Lord’s Prayer is a hearty and helpful companion in my experience. I have no idea when I first learned it, unlike Psalm 23 which I learned from my Mom when I was four and recited in our little church. Both Scripture passages have personalized, enriched and illuminated my understanding of our heavenly Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, who he sent to redeem us from sin and death.

We would each pray in turn in our family worships. My Dad would always pray last and he would frequently conclude by praying, “May we see Thee returning soon in the clouds of heaven so that we can go home and live with the One who taught us to pray, ‘Our Father who art in heaven . . . .” We would all join in saying the Lord’s Prayer together at that point. That’s where I must have learned the prayer in the King James’ English that my Dad repeated with a tender reverence that will always be the tone and pitch in which Jesus’ words sing to my heart.

I came to think of the prayer as a blanket covering our family with the love and protection of our heavenly Father. Fifty years later, I pray with modern language, but I still like to pull that prayer-blanket close around me as I lie in bed at night after a difficult day, driving to work or while hiking up a steep trail in the mountains. It is a profound blessing to know that I have a Father in heaven holding my loved ones, friends, and even enemies in the encircling embrace of “Our Father.”

Reading C.S. Lewis taught me about “festooning” which means to add your own thoughts and concerns at each phrase of the prayer to make it personal. This is something like, ” ‘Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” including that difficult conversation that I will have today, and in my relationships in the law firm and at the University, especially _____ who is having such a hard time right now. ‘Give her today, the daily bread and sustenance that she needs to make it through . . . .” and so on. You get the point.

After I received a knee replacement two years ago, I was able to return to exercise. I hired a personal trainer, Patty, to push me along to fitness. Sometimes she challenges me with planks, a form of torture, er . . . exercise in which I lift my self up from a prone position on my forearms and toes and hold that pose for thirty seconds in three sets of three repetitions each. If a work-out has been particularly strenuous, the last set of planks can cause my whole body to shake and tremble as I struggle to hold the pose.

My appearance must be similar to a breaching whale as my bulk pushes up off the mat. I am too old and too grateful for health to worry about how I look. It takes my whole focus to get through each plank.

At first I silently counted “thirty thousand, twenty-nine thousand” down to “one-thousand” at the annoying beep of the digital timer, but that kept my mind on the strain of what I was doing. I found that slowly and evenly praying the Lord’s Prayer would take me about 28 seconds and keep me thinking of my sovereign Lord and his grace which is a great comfort to me. I don’t recite this as some mindless mantra, but I really think through each phrase with the pictures of God and the needs of the people in my life they bring to mind.

The first miracle I received by praying this way was the improvement of my attitude about planks and about Patty-the-trainer who makes me do them. It also reminded me of something I learned a while back about “reverse engineering” (my phrase) the structure of the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9-13). Reverse engineering is a process by which a finished construction like a machine, a process, software etc. is taken apart piece by piece to learn how it is put together.

Reverse engineering the Lord’s Prayer will take one on the path of the exodus of the Children of Israel from their enslavement in Egypt to their new life with the Lord in the Promised Land. This was a great discovery because that’s a path that I’ve had to traverse myself.

The path starts, of course, with the need to be rescued from evil. The Israelites were in bondage to a nation engrossed in the idolatry of work and ritualistic religion. Both of these idols demand human sacrifices of a type that is ever-present wherever human effort is the highest power and fear is the prevailing spirit. God called them out, not to instant relief, but to walk with him and learn that it takes his grace to master the sin that holds us captive (See Rom 5:20).

There is a constant need to pray that we are not given greater trials and temptations than we can bear when obedience to the Lord’s call takes us across seemingly impassable seas and barren, rocky, desert spaces. Ease and luxury are seductive, but hard, desperate times can produce even greater temptations to faithlessness. Augur, son of Jakeh, made this observation recorded in Proverbs 30:7-8.

Two things I ask of you;

do not deny them to me before I die:

Remove far from me falsehood and lying;

    give me neither poverty or riches;

    feed me with the food that I need,

or I shall be full, and deny you,

    and say, “Who is the Lord?”

or I shall be poor and steal,

    and profane the name of my God.

Human flesh is weak, the journey was long and hot, and the best of intentions went awry. Freedom carries responsibilities, but the Israelites began to grumble and rebel and the frictions of living together in hostile terrain began to take their toll. The chains of resentment and violence threatened to hold them back. God wanted them to move on and that required forgiveness and mercy extended between them so he could show them the full extent of his forgiveness and mercy.

Jesus made forgiveness of each other the key to effective prayer. “Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors . . . For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others, neither will your heavenly Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt 6:12, 14-15). God is not bound by time. He longs for us to know eternity. But when we hold on to insults and injuries we chain ourselves to the time of their occurrence and that denies God’s plans to give us an unlimited future and a hope.

As the journey continued, old appetites and cravings stirred. Obsessions and desires threatened to enslave once again. Addictions are so resilient that they can lie dormant for a long time, waiting to be awakened by stress or memory. God supplied the Israelites with manna, wonderful food, but only enough for a day at a time lest they hoard and seek control and deny his grace.

Jesus prayed, “Give us this day our daily bread” on the same principle that our heavenly Father is our true supply and a daily relationship with him carries everything needed to sustain the life that he gives us (Matt 6:11). Obedience , a listening, willing response, is necessary to maintain this essential relationship of the human to the Divine for the long haul.

The Lord gave the law as a covenant with the Israelites to keep them close to him and free of the enslavements that humans assume when they seek to live without his rule (Ex 20:1-17; Deut 5:6-21). Jesus simplifies that covenant in his prayer to surrender to our Father’s reign,”Your kingdom come,”  and submission to our Father’s authority, “Your will be done.” His prayer made a request that is broader in scope, but more intimate in application than the law. Rather than the objective statutory of the law of Moses, Jesus said to ask for the sovereign rule of the Father over every aspect of our lives.

With Jesus came a grace and truth that proved to be life itself. In the presence of representatives of the law and the prophets, God the Father said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased, listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and  were overcome by fear, but Jesus came to them and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’And when they looked up, they saw no one but Jesus alone” (Matt 17:5-7).

The law demanded obedience, but Jesus commands our allegiance. Those who follow Jesus through the cross, yield everything to him including their very life. Those who receive the resurrection of Jesus Christ by the glory of the Father as their salvation receive Jesus’ very life as their own (Rom 6:4, Gal 2:19-20; Col 3:1-4). Only those who passed through the waters of the Jordan River came to life in the Promised Land.

It is the Father’s power that makes this new creation possible. “For it is God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Cor 4:6-7).

With this vital connection of life from the sole source of God’s power, we can see why Jesus would pray, “Hallowed be Your name.” The loving imprint of the Father is found throughout Creation, drawing our attention to him and  calling us to reverence. The prophet Isaiah in vision saw the Seraphs in heaven attending to the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty, calling out “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord  of hosts;  the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa:6:3).

At the end of our journey from exile to home is “Our Father in heaven” whose love made it possible. Israel reached the Promised Land, but our greater hope is to dwell with our heavenly Father forever in his house where Jesus said he has gone ahead to prepare a place for us (John 14:2-3). When we arrive we will cry out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory” (Rev 19:6-7).

I have retraced the path of the Lord’s Prayer from its end to its beginning because it is a marvelous thing to glimpse the Father’s love and the Son’s faithfulness from another direction. But Jesus started his prayer where we should always begin our waking and sleeping and everything we do — by praying to “Our Father in heaven . . . for the kingdom and the power and the glory are Yours forever. Amen” (Matt  6:9-13).

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

P.S. If you received this it is because you requested it or someone you know passed it on to you. If you wish to continue to receive this weekly meditation, simply send an email to me at khansen@claysonlaw.com with the word “subscribe,” or tell whoever forwarded it to you to keep sending it.

If you do not wish to receive any more of these messages, please send an email to khansen@claysonlaw.com with the word, “unsubscribe.” This only works if you received the message from me directly. If someone else forwards the message to you and you want them to stop, please email them back and tell them to stop sending it. Thanks.

The post A Word of Grace – May 5, 2013 appeared first on Living the Legacy of C.S. Lewis.

Many believe this gives strong proof that Lewis was a supporter and believer in Universalism, or the belief theological doctrine that all human beings will eventually be saved no matter what their own religious choice may be, which he distinctly disagreed with.  This has still lead to many arguments over the true nature of this ending that still impacts readers to this day.

Louis Markos, over at Civitate.org, has written a compelling article on this very topic arguing that it is neither universalism nor post-mortem salvation that Lewis advocates in the final pages of the Chronicles.  He offers a well thought out and well-structured argument against the ideas that Lewis fans have debated for years.  Check out Markos’ full article here.  And be sure to check out the rest of his A to Z series on Lewis.

Another compelling scene within The Last Battle is Lewis’ portrayal and description of heaven.  This has been a challenging topic for centuries.  What exactly will heaven be like?  What will we experience?  Will it be like Earth 2.0? Lewis tackles this wonder towards the end of the book, and long-time friend of the Foundation, Randy Alcorn, lays out this description in a clip from a lecture he recently gave.  It details the point in the story when Lewis gives a clear message on what he believes Heaven will truly be like.  Check out Randy’s Blog for more great insight into the Christian world.

We here at the C.S. Lewis Foundation also want to wish a congratulations to our friend Melanie Stiles.  Melanie was recently recognized in the Christian Choice Book Awards for her work, The Heart of a Ready Scribe.  We’re always very excited whenever a friend and supporter of the Foundation is recognized in the Christian world.  Congratulations Melanie!

The post C.S. Lewis Around the Web – May 1, 2013 appeared first on Living the Legacy of C.S. Lewis.

Dear Friends,

Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son” (Mark 15:37-39).

Watersheds are marvelous demonstrations of the laws of gravity and hydrology. Clouds touch the earth on mountain peaks and ridges depositing their gifts of rain and snow. The runoff pours down the rock and soil in a direction that depends on the incline of the upthrust earth.

If I stand beside a waterfall on the west slope of the Great Smoky Mountains, I know that the water will make its way down the rivers that will discharge into the Gulf of Mexico. A spring up-welling a few feet away on the east slope will send its waters down across the Piedmont and into the Atlantic.

As I write this, I am looking at the ridge line of the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California. The waters of the Santa Ana River tumble down the west slopes headed for the Pacific Coast. The waters of the Whitewater River rising a few miles east will enter the lower Colorado Desert and will empty into the Salton Sea in wet years.

Life thrives or is impossible to sustain depending on where the water flows. One can enjoy a lush rainforest on a west-facing slope and a dry desert in the empty rain shadow of an east-facing slope.

There is a phrase “watershed event” to describe an occurrence that has far-reaching and permanent consequences. Just as the snow-pack in the Sierra Nevada determines the reliability of water in kitchen taps in Los Angeles 400 miles away, so choices of relationships, school, and jobs as well as accidents or illnesses can impact our lives far into the future.

The crucifixion of Jesus is just such a watershed event. His anguished cry and the torn temple curtain marked the end of an era. No longer was it necessary to separate and protect the people from the presence of God. The torn curtain removed the barrier that barred a sinful people from access to their holy God.

The centurion’s recognition of Jesus’ true identity as the Son of God marked a beginning. God himself had cleared the path ahead to eternity and removed the sin that kept humans from taking it (Heb 9:26).

The pagan Roman officer probably didn’t grasp the full significance yet, but his revelation demanded a response. The dam had burst. The centurion was standing in the watershed of grace and its run-off would carry him all the way to the Father’s side if he chose to surrender to it.

There’s a lot of speculation, but no one really knows whether the centurion decided to follow Jesus Christ. What we know is that in a moment of darkness and violence when insults were flying, blood was flowing and breath was departing, a man trained for war watched Jesus die and caught a vision of God at work.

The centurion identified Jesus as the Son of God by the way he died. The legal rules of evidence give special credibility to statements made when the witness is under the stress of excitement from a startling or shocking event or condition. What convicted the centurion was that in the face of his accusers and executioners, Jesus died in his own way. Only someone with a fearless conscience and a faith that saw beyond the excruciating pain and darkness could know such peace in that moment.

“Certainly, this man was God’s Son” from an eyewitness invites one to explore the other side of the cross. Whether it is our calendar system, literature, songs, and the cross itself, an instrument of humiliation transformed into the best known brand in the world, “Jesus is unavoidable” in the words of theologian N.T. Wright.

It is disappointing that most people try to stay on the near-side of the cross. The Apostle Paul said that the idea of the crucified Christ as God is crazy foolishness to the secular world that is always looking for someone smarter and stronger. He said his own Jewish people were waiting for the Messiah as a king and conqueror and a crucified rabbi didn’t fit the billing (1 Cor 1:25). The world still reflects those lines of thought.

I’ve been legal counsel for a leading academic medical center for 33 years and it is clear to me that despite impressive and revolutionary scientific and clinical advances during that time, death remains the inevitable fact of human existence. There is no hope of escaping it by any human device or perfection. We will die and what then? You have no answer for that except futility if you stay on this side of the divide of the cross. The Living Water courses down the other side moving on with the Son of God (See John 4:14; 1 Cor 15:17). It’s time for you to follow.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

P.S. If you received this it is because you requested it or someone you know passed it on to you. If you wish to continue to receive this weekly meditation, simply send an email to me at khansen@claysonlaw.com with the word “subscribe,” or tell whoever forwarded it to you to keep sending it.

If you do not wish to receive any more of these messages, please send an email to khansen@claysonlaw.com with the word, “unsubscribe.” This only works if you received the message from me directly. If someone else forwards the message to you and you want them to stop, please email them back and tell them to stop sending it. Thanks.

The post A Word of Grace – April 29, 2013 appeared first on Living the Legacy of C.S. Lewis.

For more details on these exciting events read below, or check out our website for more information on the exciting year ahead for C.S. Lewis

The 2013 C.S. Lewis Summer Conference in San Diego Early Bird discount is still available! This special ends tomorrow! Sign up by the 25th and you will save $25 off of the regular conference registration rate.

We invite you to join us in San Diego, from June 21 to 23, as we celebrate the inspiring life and enduring legacy of C.S. Lewis with many of the leading Lewis scholars of our time.

If you are interested in more information concerning the conference, please visit the Conference Home Page .

Lewis to be Honored in Poets’ Corner

C.S. Lewis will be honored with a place in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey

on November 22 of this year.  C.S. Lewis will be honored at Westminster Abbey by being included in the world famous Corner.   A memorial stone will be placed at the Corner and will be dedicated at a special service honoring Lewis on the fiftieth anniversary of his death.

Vernon White, Canon Theologian at Westminster Abbey, said: “C.S. Lewis was an extraordinarily imaginative and rigorous thinker and writer, who was able to convey the Christian faith in a way that made it both credible and attractive to a wide range of people. He has had an enduring and growing influence in our national life.”

Lewis will join such great poets as John Keats, William Blake, and T.S. Eliot, as well as other literary greats such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Geoffrey Chaucer in a tradition going back almost 600 years.

Longtime friend of the Foundation, Malcolm Guite, will be a part of the ceremony honoring Lewis on the 22^nd.  He will be joined by author Alister McGrath, who recently released a new biography about Lewis.

In order for the memorial to be placed, the organizers need to raise a total of £20,000. If you would like to donate to the C.S. Lewis Poets’ Corner initiative please visit the official donation page.

For more information concerning the ceremony and the events leading up to it, please check out the links below.

Lewis Poet Corner Official Website

BBC Article About the Event

Malcolm Guite’s Article about the Upcoming Event

The post C.S. Lewis Has a Big Year Ahead appeared first on Living the Legacy of C.S. Lewis.

C.S. Lewis Foundation intern Walter Cabal was recently interviewed by The Press Enterprise.

In between assisting with the Foundation’s website and working at the UC Riverside library, Walter also is a professional singer-songwriter. His debut album, Between Lines, was released in 2012, and garnered much praise around Southern California. In October, he was nominated Musician of the Year at the annual RAWartists Indie Awards.

Inland Empire Weekly noted Walter’s influences as C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Tom Waits, and David Bazan. Concerning C.S. Lewis, Walter says that he is inspired by his ability to condense complex ideas into clear and cogent writing. Said Walter to The Press Enterprise, “C.S. Lewis was a great communicator, and a great user of images to really help take heady things and put them in a chewable form.”

The rest of Walter’s interview is below, as well as live recordings of three of his songs. You can find out more on his website, and purchase his album here.

The Pit

Back Breaker

Copper Courage

The post Listen to Foundation Intern Walter Cabal’s Album and Interview appeared first on Living the Legacy of C.S. Lewis.

There will be no message next week due to travel.

#

He brought me out into a broad place;

    he delivered me, because he

           delighted in me . . .

You gave me a wide place for my

           steps under me,

    and my feet did not slip.

Psalm 18:19, 36

Agoraphobia (noun): An abnormal fear of open or public places.

– American Heritage Dictionary

David was in real trouble — not an irritating inconvenience or a momentary anxiety attack, but life-threatening, movement-restricting, plot-thickening, “I-may-never-make-it-to-tomorrow” trouble.

His enemies had his feet snared and were pulling him down with jealousy, anger and deceit. David’s prayer in Psalm 18 broke the glass and pulled the alarm for emergency help from the Lord. As the beloved old hymn tells us:

Have we trials and temptations?

Is there trouble anywhere?

We should never be discouraged,

Take it to the Lord in prayer.

– Joseph M. Scriven, What a Friend We Have in Jesus

There are two things you can be sure of when you pray a prayer like David’s – the Lord knows what you need and he will have mercy.

Oh, yes, one more thing — the Lord your God is not a mild greeting-card deity, content to hold you close and blanket you with comfort in your distress. He has no intention of being good company to you in your misery. He is going to do something about the problem.

He will tear the heavens apart and shake the earth to its foundations to answer your prayer. That’s the way that David experienced the Lord and described him.

Don’t be content to merely pray for stability in chaos, or strength to make it one more day. It may be all you can bring yourself to ask of him, but your God is capable and willing to do a lot more than that.

Good parents seek wide-open spaces where their children can run and play, breathe fresh air, feel the warmth of the sun and the splash of the rain. A parent who  carries  his or her child at  all  times  and restricts their play for fear that they will get dirty or skin a knee is crippling the child.

Of course the parents watch and step in if necessary, but a child needs to learn the simple joys of jumping and throwing, the capacities of legs and lungs, and the competing tensions of balance and gravity. To  really know what it means to be alive, a child needs the space to find out.

God the Father is the original parent, like none other. He brought his son David out of his dark confinement, not to hold him or hide him , but to set him down “in a broad place.”

There are four things that one experiences in a broad place — exposure, perspective, proportion, and growth.

David had spent a lot of time hiding from his enemies in caves and rocks. He knew the value of fortifications and cover. But God wanted to show him the best defense — dependence on God’s grace. David would never learn this if God allowed him to crouch down and hole up somewhere trying to out last his enemies.

You will never know God’s grace as long as you rely upon props and defenses of your own devising. Are you merely speculating that God will cover you or do you know? David said that “by my God I can leap over a wall” (Ps 18:29b).

The Lord may give you, his child, the strength to leap over the wall in answer to your desperate plea to be relieved from the trap set by your enemies. He may show you handholds and footholds that will enable you to climb over the wall. If leaping or climbing aren’t options, he may lead you to a door. Or he may just knock down the wall.

Understand this — what’s on the other side of the wall will be different. Living with God means living without walls. He does not restore us to the way it was before. He saves us for the way he wants it to be called “the kingdom of God.”

Our lives on this earth are mostly lived in enclosures of our own or someone else’s making. When things go badly, our instinct is to make those enclosures tighter and stronger to keep others from getting in including the God who, to our horror, may want to expose us instead of sheltering us.

We are not called to the cringing existence of mere survival on this earth. It is God’s desire that we be exposed to the shining brightness of his glory so that we see and know that he alone is God and there is no other. He gives us the gift of perspective so that this desire may be fulfilled in us. Our walls of defense and shelter cut off the view and have to go.

In the “broad space,” the only thing that obscures the view is our refusal to look at the “the day the Lord has made” and to “rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 118:24). That’s our choice of course, but God wants us to look so we can learn the difference between the real and the fake and know that the Lord is everywhere and his grace is always more powerful than sin (Cf, Rom 5:20-21).

From the perspective of an unobstructed view comes a right sense of proportionality. Enemies that looked so large and intimidating when we were closed in, now are dwarfed by the gracious spaciousness of God. We can see a horizon meaning that there is an end to our troubles, but it is wider than we can span and we cannot see beyond it with our human eyes. That’s when “faith … the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” is activated (Heb 11:1).

Things come into proportion in the wide-open spaces where God leads us so that he is much bigger than we thought and there is more to see and know than we thought we understood.  The surpassing proportions of grace shrink our problems, so large when we were closed up with them, down to their right size and magnify God to fill our vision.

It is axiomatic that one cannot grow without the space to do so. Paradoxically, the proportions of a bigger God and a smaller self lead us to spiritual growth as God’s love draws us toward him. That’s why the Apostle Paul prayed so earnestly that we would “have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:18-19).

All this time we’ve been focused on our enemies which simply confirms that we are enemies of someone. We’ve been contorting our souls to fit our defenses, trying to avoid exposure.

The thick of the forest is not where one plants a tree so it can grow tall. It will be crowded there by the shade of the other trees and denied the light and nutrients necessary for growth. It is necessary to plant the seedling at the edge of the forest or in the field where the sun can trigger photosynthesis and the rain can do its work unimpeded. God wants us in the open where his grace can do its best work.

The Lord rescues us from the cramped, tawdry existence of sin and fear. He delivers us for no other reason than he “delights” in us as David observed. He wants us to grow and enjoy freedom because that’s what he made us to do (Gal 5:1, Col 2:19). God created us in love because he thought we might like it.

Consider the spirit he gives to those who let him have his way with them. “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline” (1 Tim 1:7). In other words, he gives us a spirit made to experience and enjoy his spacious grace.

We are prone in human nature to say that we don’t have any enemies. Why then does trust come so hard to us? Why do we take such precautions in guarding our hearts against pain and locking our doors against invasion and theft. We all have enemies that would entangle and bring us down if they could. If that’s all we are thinking about, then our walls and defenses make a crazy kind of sense.

But God’s plans for us are as limitless as eternity and his provision for us is as spacious as heaven.

What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

nor the human heart conceived,

what God has prepared for those who love him.

1 Cor 1:9

One of the things we know that he has built for us is a home. He promised to come for us and take us there (John 14:1-3).

We don’t have to figure out the path through enemy territory for ourselves. David’s prayer points the way out.

In my distress I called upon the Lord;

   to my God I cried for help.

(Ps 18:6)

The Lord your God knows where he wants you to be. In his time and in his way, he will take you there — for sure!

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

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The post A Word of Grace – April 15, 2013 appeared first on Living the Legacy of C.S. Lewis.

C.S. Lewis will be honored with a place in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey

Shortly after we posted Lancia Smith’s interview with Andrew Lazo yesterday, yet another fascinating interview became available.  This time, Lancia interviews prolific author Alister McGrath about his recent biography of C.S. Lewis, entitled C.S. Lewis: A Life.  The first portion of the interview, which covers McGrath’s research into Lewis’s life, his opinion on the recent re-dating of Lewis’s conversion, and also his discover of a letter in which C.S. Lewis nominated J.R.R. Tolkien for the Nobel Prize, can be read here.

The second part of the interview can be found here.  McGrath also recorded a video interview at the Kilns, where he spoke about his biography.

C.S. Lewis was no stranger to grief and pain. Adversity was familiar to him throughout his life–his mother died when he was young, his friend was killed in World War I (and he was wounded himself), and of course there is the tragic story of the death of his wife, Joy.  An article in the Australian Christian Today was published several weeks ago, analyzing Lewis’s theology of pain through his poetry.

Concerning Lewis’s poetry, and for Lewis fans in England, there will a C.S. Lewis event at The King’s Centre in Norwich on May 2nd.  Hymn-writer Lex Loizides and actor John Carson will tell the story of Lewis’ passion as a poet and unearth some of his greatest poems.  There will be another similar event in Cambridge on May 1.

Lastly, this year commemorates the 50th anniversary of Lewis’s death, and so memorial efforts have been springing up around the world.  We at the C.S. Lewis Foundation are holding several events this year to commemorate Lewis’s legacy. Impressively, Lewis will also be honored with a place in the famous Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.  Not to be left out, Lewis’s birthplace of Belfast is currently planning suitable events to celebrate him as well.

The post C.S. Lewis Around the Web – April 4, 2013 appeared first on Living the Legacy of C.S. Lewis.

You can read part 1 of the interview here, and part 2 here.

Among the topics discussed are Lewis’s works, such as Till We Have Faces, Andrew’s perspective on the need for scholarship (particularly scholarship done on C.S. Lewis), and also more information about his recent discovery of the actual date of Lewis’s conversion to theism.

Even 50 years after his death, Lewis’s popularity continues to surge, making all of these topics important ones to consider.  Regarding Lewis’s enduring fame, Andrew recounts an amusing anecdote:

Many people, starting with Lewis and those who survived him, have long expected Lewis to fade quietly from the scene for half a century. But Lewis’s influence rightly grows. The story is told of how a student of Lewis’s (and later a great Chaucerian), Derek Brewer, came to Lewis’s rooms in Magdalen College for his first tutorial with the great man. He knocked, and J. R. R. Tolkien answered the door. “Is Lewis your tutor then? Ah, you’ll never get to the bottom of him!” Tolkien proclaimed.

For those interested, Lancia Smith’s website features many such interviews, including ones held with Os Guinness and Malcolm Guite.

The post C.S. Lewis and Scholarship – An Interview with Andrew Lazo appeared first on Living the Legacy of C.S. Lewis.