Where Did You Find God Today?

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full (John 15:11).

I am living a dream. Decades ago, while in seminary, I received an opportunity to possibly be chosen for a scholarship to go to Oxford for a six-week summer term to study C.S. Lewis. As an Anglophile extraordinaire, it was beyond my wildest dreams. But, during the qualification stage, I fell in love, married, and within a few months became pregnant, spending a good portion of those nine months in bed. No Oxford in my future. So long C.S. Lewis.

Fast forward to now…

Just when my housebound confinement due to medical issues had finally begun to wear on me, I saw a small ad for a free online course offered by Hillsdale College on C.S. Lewis and Christianity taught by the renowned C.S. Lewis scholar, yes from Oxford, Dr. Michael Ward. The optional eight books by Lewis to be read in conjunction with the course cost only $120 with S&H. And I had just received my quarterly book royalty check. Hurrah! I could do this. I had the time. I had the funds. I was in between deadlines with my publisher. Isn’t our Lord’s timing perfect!

So for the past month, I have been emersed in the nonfictional writings of C.S. Lewis. And I want to share with you what I have learned.

JOY IS NOT AN EMOTION! It is not fleeting like happiness.

Lewis tells of a time when, as he stood in a woodshed, he noticed a beam of light coming through a crack. Contemplation told him it was a beam from the sun. He saw the illumination, the angle, the dust mites dancing in it. Intellectually, analytically, in his mind, he knew it to be a true sunbeam, not a figment of his imagination.

Beautiful. It caught his attention. But then he dared to step into the sunbeam. Lewis chose to immerse himself in it, and upon doing so, he experienced the joy of the sunbeam. Lewis no longer saw the beam but looked along it to where it led. He saw the sunlight dancing on the new spring leaves and reaching back to the sun. The beauty captured his breath. It quickened his heart as the warmth penetrated his soul. His whole being focused on the beam’s projected path.

That is the joy of faith. That is the true experience of religion. When one immerses his or herself in the will of God and joins into what is good, right, and designed to be, then and only then does the person begin to fulfill the first and great commandment … You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. (Matthew 22:37).  It is no longer a head trip, but a full-body, mind, and soul experience. A move from contemplation into joy.

Stepping into the beam and following where it leads engages the whole human being. It enlists trust, hope, and worth. It aligns us with the cycle of the universe, the created order of our God that extends beyond what our personal agendas and desires dictate. It opens our hearts to the Holy Spirit’s guidance and lets our souls embrace our Savior’s immeasurable, unconditional love. We leave the subjectivity of “what I want” and enter into the objectivity of God’s will for us in the dance of creation.

Faith is no longer a set of rules, traditions, and boundaries. It is no longer colored by our limited knowledge or experience. It is being of one accord with the Holy, and in that Eden-like moment when we walk in the garden with our God, it unites us with humanity as it should be. All the things that divide us–all the prejudices, hate, anger, and hurt–disperse.

This joy goes beyond contemplation or earthly rationalization. War, death, illness, and sorrow cannot break the beam. Hardship and despair cannot dim it, neither can envy nor pride bend it. Because we experience the totality of God’s love through joy, we can openly share that love with others and urge them to step into the beam as well. “I can’t explain it. It’s beyond cool. You gotta come do this for yourself.”

If you have ever witnessed a new birth, be it a butterfly breaking its chrysalis, a kitten, a puppy, or a person emerging from the womb, or participated in someone being baptized and becoming a new creation in Christ before your eyes, you can probably recall the joy of that moment. Forget the science. Set aside the tradition. Something else more marvelous is occurring–the fulfillment of creation. The soul and heart are engaged as well as the mind. Your whole being, as it was created to be, is experiencing the moment. You have stepped into the beam.

And that is what prayer should be … being emersed in the beam. Beyond feeling, beyond visual perception, beyond intellectualization or emotion, and a fulfillment of all of the above. It is immersing yourself in the eternal while still standing in the temporal.

Lewis’ reconversion into a faithful believer in Christ occurred when he took Tolkien’s advice and let the joy happen. When he dropped to the wayside the misconceptions, the hurtful remembrances of stifling rules and traditions, and his prejudices, and then stepped beyond the limits of his intellectual mind (which was vast) into experiencing the Bible itself. He immersed himself in the story of God’s love for His creation, His attempts to woo humanity back into the order of relationship, His coming to earth, then dying for our sins and triumphing over death so our hearts could soften to receive the Holy Spirit. Then, and only then, in the light of that Love did all the traditions and commandments make sense.

I am beginning to once again tap into that joy that had dimmed so recently. To take my mind off myself and re-focus on my First Love. I am starting to feel the warmth again–the peace that passes all understanding — and I pray you will step into it as well so it may guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7).

Dare to step with me into the beam. And bask in where it leads.