.....I was reading sections of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis for a class today and one section of the reading really struck a chord with me. Lewis was talking about "pretending" and tells this story about a man who had to wear a mask over his face for an extended period of time. Now the thing is the mask actually was a lot happier looking then what he actually was. When the time was over what he found was that his own face had actually transformed to replicate the mask. Wow. Lewis continues on to say that pretending leads up to the real thing...and that often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you already had it. Interesting enough, psychology has also demonstrated this. When people who are not happy are forced to smile (or vise versa) they actually report feeling happier afterwards. Try it for yourself! Have you ever had someone try to take your mind off your sadness by making you laugh or such? Do you find that you actually feel better? I know I do (Rory has found this weakness of mine too!) Anyhow... back to what I was saying. It was really enlightening to me that Lewis would make light of this and in a way point out that it just might be beneficial to pretend in order to eventually become what you want to be.
For the longest time I always wanted to not be that Christian who "pretends" to be a Christian. I thought being a Christian meant that you actually needed to all the right things and do the right things, like reading your bible, praying, etc and most importantly you needed to do this things because you DESIRED to do them. And that it would be wrong to be "the Christian" if you didn't want to do these things. (Am I making any sense? I hope so!) For ages I have come to real standstill in my relationship with Christ. I won't lie. I haven't picked up my bible or truly prayed in ages. I haven't like doing it. haven't desired to. So don't right? It would be wrong to if I did....
...now this reading has me questioning. Maybe being Christian isn't always mean you have to emotionally be there to be "politically correct". Maybe its ok to just do it and let my heart follow when it is ready. And the whole notion of "pretending leading to becoming" might actually become helpful. No I may really not heartfelt-like want to do devotions and pray but in doing them, just maybe my "pretending" will lead to "becoming".....
2 comments:
Steph, there is validity in both sides you speak of. I think pretending doesn't make a genuine Christian if someone is using it deceitfully in their motives, and God does truly want our hearts to belong to Him, but on the other side, I think what you read is right. Sometimes you just have to go through the motions, not wanting to, but disciplining yourself to anyways and you'll find that God can use those things to actually change your heart. If someone was to always say, "sorry God I just don't feel like it", or "I'm not in that place", and they don't try (like not picking up your Bible b/c you really don't WANT to read it), then they will never move forward, b/c they are not feeding their soul (or rather they're not letting God feed their soul). We don't know how starved we really are sometimes until we get a good feeding and realize what we've been lacking/missing! It is so true! I think the intention of doing those practices even though the desire isn't quite there still can be honoring to God, b/c he sees that you are making it a priority, making HIM a priority, even though its maybe not the thing you most WANT to do. What we don't want to do, is usually what we NEED to do when talking of spiritual disciplines!
Thanks for your comments Carmen. You definitely articulated what I was trying to say a lot better! and gave me more to think about...thank-you!
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