I have started reading a book by David C. Downing on C.S. Lewis. It is called Into The Region Of Awe: Mysticism In C. S. Lewis. I had no intention of reading about C.S. Lewis. I was lead to it while searching the library for a book on the Moravians.
I may be going to Germany this summer, and intend to visit Herrnhut, the birthplace of the 1727 revival that birthed the Moravian missionary movement which literally impacted the planet.
I first heard about the Moravians through MorningStar Ministries. They own land in Moravian Falls, NC which was settled by Moravian missionaries in 1753. How MorningStar came to own the land is an interesting story in and of itself.
Something is happening to me.
Rick Joyner, 7/31/2006
The great souls in history took ground that future generations could walk over much easier, faster, and safer. A good example is Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians, who took a generation to establish the principles of modern missions. They not only cut a path which others could follow, but at times, they wandered up box canyons and had to turn around, seemingly losing a lot of time and resources with their mistakes. However, even those diversions saved future generations from having to make the same ones. They prepared a highway and a good map to go with it.
We only stand where we are today because others fought through the forests and underbrush, cut down mountains and hills, and built up the low places—spiritual swamps that were full of dangers and disease. They left us a wonderful highway so we could easily make it this far with relatively little effort. Let us resolve to carry this highway as far as we can in our own generation, making it much easier for others to make it as far as we have, and then go farther.
There will be a generation who actually finishes the job. It could even be ours. We may go around the next turn, cut through the next acre of underbrush, and come face to face with His glory. Even if we are not the one who finishes the job, let us do our part as well as it can be done. The way we prepare the way for the Lord and His kingdom to come to the earth, so that His will be done here just as it is in heaven, is to build a highway.
I was talking with my son Sunday about this very concept, running on the fruits of others labor and used a road as an example. Someone had to make a great sacrifice to build it and now we have the benefit of using it. The problem we seem to run into is that we focus on the road and become content with the lovely road never to break ground on new roads. The road is there so that we can go further with less effort.
But I digress. Where was I, oh yes, the book.
So I found this book about mysticism and C.S. Lewis and at first I thought it to be an odd statement. I have not read much of Lewis, but I have found him to be a logical man. I did read the Screwtape Letters years ago and thought it was brilliant but never made the jump to mystic. To be fair, I have wasted much of my life thinking reading was a waste of time, but I intend to do more reading of Lewis very soon.
What surprised me is that the more I thought about his writing the more obvious it was that he had encounters with God. I think the guy moved in the supernatural, really moved in it. His grasp of the kingdom of God in The Chronicles of Narnia can only be explained by experiencing kingdom. We give too much credit to creativity. The best creativity is based on some sort of experience, otherwise it is just fiction.
This excerpt from Downings book was telling. “When writing about Narnia to a class of fifth graders who asked if it were possible to visit Aslan’s country, Lewis replied that the only way he knew of was through death but then added this curious qualifier: ‘Perhaps some very good people get just a tiny glimpse before then.'”
Amen.
On my walk this morning as I was mulling over the concept that science is the study of nature and since nature is a pointer to God, I realized that science will never be able to prove God. It is not an original thought, but the more I meditated on it, a simple phrase rose up in me.
“God can not be defined by what He has designed.”
God is supernatural, which literally means “above nature”. To look for Him within the confines of His creation will never do. For us as the created to try and find the creator within the confines of His creation is like trying to describe color.
Try and describe the color Red. Go ahead, try it! You can’t without a reference to something that is red! Color simply is. It is what it is and even though you can measure it, quantify it, split it, mix it, without experiencing it the concept of color is meaningless. We can do the same thing with the aroma of coffee. We can’t adequately describe aroma without a reference to something that also has aroma. Again, if you have never smelled anything how on earth can you relate it?
Now, lets try and define God. We can describe attributes of Him, but define Him from nature? Not gonna happen.
The fact that we can comprehend the concept of God is proof enough He exists. We have experienced Him already, that is the reason for our ability to even comprehend the concept, but He can never be defined by the created. Stop looking for Him in the natural, He IS the supernatural.
Einstein wrote that he was awestruck by our ability to comprehend the universe, at least in part, and in later life remarked several times that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.
Which begs the question; why does man have the ability to grasp the incomprehensible?
So that we can be one with the creator.