God glorified through Narnia

So a few years ago for Christmas, I got my sister the Chronicles of Narnia book with all of them in chronological order. I’ve never read anything by CS Lewis, and you might chuckle but it’s true! All of you must be wondering, how can you be a Christian and not have read anything by Lewis? Some of you might even be wondering if I was a Christian at all! But I assure you, I’m a rarity, and I think because I’m reading it so late after beginning my walk with the Lord, my reading it now has made it all the more beautiful to me.

I would love to share some passages from it that stick out to me. The reason why I think it’s so beautiful is that alone it would simply be a beautiful story. It is a fine piece of literature by itself and deserves to be a children’s classic in it’s own right. But the true beauty comes when it is paired with one’s walk with the Lord and reading of the word of God. I don’t believe that Lewis wrote the Chronicles of Narnia as just another way to look at the Bible, but he wrote it to help children better see and love Jesus and learn from him through these stories as Jesus helped people to understand through his parables. (I also believe I remember reading that somewhere in a book because people were afraid that the children would love Aslan more than Jesus).

In my reading of this series, the gospel has come alive in another way in my life through the imagination that comes from these pages. Through the interaction of the humans and Aslan I can see more of our faults and more of not only how beautiful Jesus is, but also our relationship with him with all the ups and the downs.

I just recently finished “The Magician’s Nephew” which was written later but meant to be read first in this series. I’m currently reading through “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.”

As an example, here’s a passage in “The Magician’s Nephew” on the founding of Narnia.

All this time the Lion’s song, and this stately prowl, to and fro, backwards and forwards, was going on. What was rather alarming was that at each turn he came a little nearer. Polly was finding the song more and more interesting because she thought she was beginning to see the connection between music and the things that were happening. When a line of dark firs sprang up on a ridge about a hundred yards away she felt that they were connected with a series of deep prolonged notes which the Lion had sung a second before. And when he burst into rapid series of lighter notes she was not surprised to see primroses suddenly appearing in every direction. Thus, with an unspeakable thrill, she felt quite certain that all the things were coming (as she said) “out of the Lion’s head”. When you listened to this song you heard the things he was making up: when you looked around you, you saw them. ”

– The Magician’s Nephew, CS Lewis

 

It’s not supposed to give a clear picture on how God created the world, but I believe it helps children and other people see more of the beauty of it when they go back to the Word because God spoke all of creation into existence, and I’m sure it was even more exciting than this small description of the founding of Narnia, as well of a job as Lewis did.

Love the series and intend to share more later.