MEDITATION:
Written by C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), a British writer and theologian. This is an excerpt from his autobiography “Surprised by Joy.”
There are men, far better men than I, who have made immortality almost the central doctrine of their religion; but for my own part, I have never seen how a preoccupation with that subject at the outset could fail to corrupt the whole thing. I had been brought up to believe that goodness was goodness only if it were disinterested and that any hope of reward or fear of punishment contaminated the will. If I was wrong in this (the question is really much more complicated than I then perceived) my error was most tenderly allowed for. I was afraid that threats or promises would demoralize me; no threats or promises were made. The commands were inexorable, but they were backed by no “sanctions.” God was to be obeyed simply because he was God. Long since, through the gods of Asgard, and later through the notion of the Absolute, He had taught me how a thing can be revered not for what it can do to us but for what it is in itself. That is why, though it was a terror, it was no surprise to learn that God is to be obeyed because of what He is in Himself. If you ask why we should obey God, in the last resort the answer is, “I am.”
To know God is to know that our obedience is due to Him. In his nature, His sovereignty de jure is revealed. Of course, as I have said, the matter is more complicated than that. The primal and necessary Being, the Creator, has sovereignty de facto as well as de jure. He has the power as well as the kingdom and the glory. But the de jure sovereignty was made known to me before the power, the right before the might. And for this I am thankful. I think it is well, even now, sometimes to say to ourselves, “God is such that if (per impossible) his power could vanish and His other attributes remain so that the supreme right was forever robbed of the supreme might, we should still owe Him precisely the same kind and degree of allegiance as we now do.
PRAYER:
Written by Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556) a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury.
O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed, give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give, that both our hearts may be set to obey thy commandments and also that by thee we, being defended from the fear of our enemies, may pass our time in rest and quietness, through the merits of Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
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