Let me stretch your mind for a moment by asking you to consider the fact that we have all been created by God with an eternal soul and yet in our mortal existence we are confined to time.
The great Christian writer and author C. S. Lewis challenges us to consider the paradox that we find ourselves in. We are created with an eternal soul that is housed in a time-bound body. Lewis illustrated this paradox by asking us to consider a fish. Is a fish ever surprised by the water in which it lives and breathes and has its being? Does a fish ever suddenly thrash about and panic because it is in the water? Of course not. And why? Because a fish was created to live in water. This is the natural state of the fish. The only time a fish shows any concern or surprise is when we bring it out of the water.
Now consider how often we are all surprised by time. If we were created for time to be our natural environment for "being" then why are we surprised when time passes so fast, or surprised at how fast the kids are growing, or surprised to find that there is so little time, and so on. We are constantly surprised by time.
According to Lewis, our continual surprise and shock at how time affects us is evidence that we were not created to live in time. Time is an unnatural state brought on by the sin of Adam. Our soul remains eternal even though we currently live in the confines of time. We live in a bubble of time floating in the ocean of eternity. It is when that bubble bursts and our soul is set free that we finally enter into our natural state, much as a fish must feel when returned to the water. In the mean time we gasp and gape in the artificial environment of time, groaning and eager for eternity, longing to be clothed in the habitation which is from heaven.
The Apostle Paul said:
16 . . .though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. 17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; 18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Cor 4:16-18, KJV)
The challenge for every leader is to address time bound issues with an eternity focused perspective. We may gain a quick fix by compromising our integrity, but if we do then we have lost sight of the eternal consequences and we are again little more than fish flailing out of our natural environment.
1 comment:
Thank you for sharing this CS Lewis nugget. It's really good. Makes me think of Brennan Manning's book "Ruthless Trust" is which he correlates trust similar to CS's examination of time, being that, it's inherent, but it was perverted by sin.
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