Monday, April 23, 2012

Enjoy Those Pine Needles

A while ago we were schooling and talking about how wonderful God is, but how frequently we settle for less.  Worse, we often substitute our own impressions, ideas and plans for God’s.  C.S. Lewis gave a great image of this in The Last Battle when the unbelieving dwarves failed to see the magnificent new world they’d entered.  That scene played no small part in the analogy we created in our discussion.

Imagine you are told to go sit at a table to eat. The table is empty. You think, ‘well there is nothing to eat there,’ so you decide it is smarter to go outside to eat the pine needles in the yard. It may not be as good as what MAY BE at the table, but at least you know where this is coming from and you have control and know there will always be pine needles to eat. On occasion you might go sit at the table. The most delicious, most nutritious, most enticing dishes appear and you eat to full satisfaction. You marvel and rejoice and give praise. But next meal time, you doubt. It won't happen again. What if it doesn't? Then you would look like a fool, sitting expectantly at an empty table. Or you'd rather hold that perfect memory and not test it. Instead, you go back to the 'reliability' of the pine needles. At least you know where they come from.

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