CS Lewis Quote

I have a new favorite CS Lewis quote-and its fairly deep. He said,

Every idea of Him we form, He must in mercy shatter.

What he is saying, I take it, is that we see God through our eyes. In a sense, he is an extension of our limited view of life. This view was formed by our experiences and by our relationships. Therefore, he is a God of our own making.

If our experience with people who are intended to be our caretakers has been a positive one, we tend to see a Father (in Heaven) in the same light. He becomes what we know and expect. If, on the other hand, we've been damaged or left by these father figures, we expect similar treatment from a God in heaven. Regardless of what we may profess or think we believe, a more remote part of us expects to be damaged or abandoned in the end.

In the same way, our dealings with our Creator is first and foremost a relationship. Relationships are filled elements such as love and trust and commitments and loyalty. If our relationships have been fairly positive, it becomes easier to draw closer to a relationship with deity. If we still carry pain from past interactions, we might be more reluctant to trust God, regardless of what we read.

It is for all these reasons that He must, MUST, in total mercy, shatter our ideas of who He is and why He does what He does. Our myopic human viewpoint makes it a certainty that we will be wrong; that we've somehow misunderstood Him and His love for us. For that reason, He will act contrary to what we expect, for He is not like anyone we've dealt with before. He is motivated by different things and driven by reasons we scarcely understand.

The bottom line is that He is who He is, not who we have imagined him to be. Only when we become completely honest with ourself, will we see the God we've created. This image He will shatter as learn more of Him. And this is the part where we can finally prepare to see Him as He really is.