Aslan

Friday Is a Good Thing

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I don’t think Fridays will ever get old for me. Knowing that the work week is over and that I have a few days of my own is a good feeling. Especially after you have one of those no-good, very bad days that you’re lucky to survive with most of your hair and wits still about you.

I like to think of Heaven as one long Friday, knowing that all the hard stuff and the bad stuff is over and the good stuff, the best stuff, begins and never ends.

C.S. Lewis in his Chronicles of Narnia described Heaven as the the feeling you get on the first day after the school term is over and vacation has begun. That has always resonated with me more than any imagery about Heaven.

Sometimes, the only way you can get through a trial or an ordeal is the knowledge that at some point it will end. It won’t last forever and you won’t be consumed by it.

Take heart. That day is coming, even if you can’t see it or feel it. Even if you’ve all but lost any hope for an end to your pain and suffering and tribulation.

As certain as every week has a Friday in it, the end will come. Again, C.S. Lewis made it come alive to me when He described all of history as the title page and preface to the book, and Heaven is the actual story where each chapter is better than the last and there is no ending.

It’s not an end, but the true beginning that goes on forever.

Heaven’s not just some far away place in a distant time, but it’s wherever God breaks through and shows up in power. It’s wherever God is truly present in His people and where two or more are gathered in His name.

So, I say without any hint of sacrilige, “THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY!”

When the Lights Go Out

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 6 Comments

lucynarnia

I was en route from Memphis recently, listening to a book on CD, as all well-seasoned travellers do. It was The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, book 5 of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. It was read by Derek Jacobi, by the way, in case you were dying to know.

In the book, the Dawn Treader sails into an island of darkness. It’s a place where fear rules and all nightmares come to life. Lucy is at the top of the ship, watching as the crew tries vainly to escape. In her desperation, she says, “Aslan, if you ever loved us, help us now.” The answer to her prayer is an albatross who, as he flies by her, whispers, “Courage, dear heart,” in Aslan’s voice. He then leads them out into the sunlight.

I bet you’ve been in some dark places in your life. You’ve felt trapped in the valley of the shadow of death, where no light or hope can get through. You’ve been searching for a way out, but all you find is more darkness, more despair, more hopelessness.

You feel your circumstances will never get better. You fear that nothing will ever change. You come to believe that your worst-case scenario is due to come true any day now. Your faith is at a low ebb and your fears are cresting and crashing waves that swamp you.

There’s a voice, if you are still enough to hear it, that whispers the same words what it whispered to Lucy. “Courage, dear heart.” It says, “Hold on. Trust in Me in the darkness even when you can’t find Me there. I am with you, with My everlasting arms underneath you. I will never ever let go.”

Don’t believe that you feel or what you think, but what you know. Believe the same God who has proved Himself over and over and Whose word is true. Know that He is with you and for you in your darkness. Darkness may prevail right now, but joy is coming with the morning.