I tell no-one any story but his own.

It's frightening how desperately we crave acknowledgement, isn't it?

This deep-seated, very human need for recognition and validation has become more evident in the last decade (I think) thanks to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace - well, the advent of the Internet in general. There are billions of daily pleas that go out into that interstitial space, begging someone to respond.

Where does this craving come from? I think it stems less from a desire to be recognized and more from an emptiness. It's been called a "God-shaped hole." 

"Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles...They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator." (Romans 1)

What if that human-shaped idol wasn't someone else, but ourselves? Idolatry meets narcissism.

Then we'd live in a world where everyone was out for Number One, was concerned with how they looked and how they felt and what they wanted, and was determined to satisfy themselves. A world where the other was tossed aside in favor of self, a world littered with "others"... oh, wait. We do live in that world.

Granted, there are kind souls and do-gooders and (dare I say it?) church people that bring a little light to such an oppressive picture. But they are (from what I can tell) spurred on by guilty consciences. And that motivation for helping others only effects limited change.

I always come back to C.S. Lewis: "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

On an entirely separate tack: Re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia (after a 15 year absence), this time in chronological order. I'm brought to tears by how meaningful and dense the symbolism is in those books. I think I would never have been able to appreciate it as a child.

 

But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be...

I'm struggling with grace this week - grace for myself (because I am such a mess, and Someone has shown me enormous grace), grace for those around me (because I am such a mess, and Someone has shown me enormous grace, and I am training my heart's response to also show that grace to others).


But we've been talking in our small group on Wednesday nights about love and what love looks like and where it comes from.  We've concluded (as, I think, my father so wisely pointed out several years ago) that if you act lovingly toward someone, eventually you will feel lovingly toward them.  It's not easy, and it's certainly not fun.  And the battle I have to fight against the bitter little voices in my head - I am only weary.


To finish the headline quote: "But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be, only that it lies across a river.  But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder."  I'm going to start re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia this week.  When we read them as children, they were a story.  But I'm realizing they are a story about Someone, and I want to taste Him.