Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.  Words: Dallan Forgail (8th Century)

We sang these majestic, soul-stirring words yesterday in chapel at school. I sat looking at the students as they sang - their heads hanging down over the papers in their hands - the words printed on them. They appeared to be going through motions. Such wonderfully rich words .......... I couldn't let them pass so I began each class yesterday with a question about "High King of Heaven."
Not one single student had any clue what the words meant. I knew they all knew the land of Narnia so I started there.
Narnia - 

• the land where it is always winter but never Christmas, the land frozen under the witch's spell 
• the land where the Great Lion Aslan shakes his shaggy mane and begins his move across the land bringing the thaw of winter into spring and life to all its inhabitants
• the land beyond the lamp post where the woodland creatures talk and live beside other wonderful mythological creatures
• the land created by C.S. Lewis to enchant children and adults alike

Peter Pevensie is the oldest brother who shares his adventures in Narnia with Susan, Lucy and Edmond. Peter is eventually crowned High King of Narnia which gives him authority over all the other Kings and Queens that country will ever have.


Since the name Narnia probably comes from the Italian town Nami (or Narnia in Latin), it seemed appropriate to take advantage of the teachable moment to make the connection in my Latin classes yesterday.

Of course, Jesus is the High King of Heaven! He is our Treasure! He is our Victory won - the conquering, Risen Christ! He is the King of all Kings and Lord of all Lords!

 

And, best of all, He is the Risen Christ who took all my sin and who made the awful trade giving me, His orphan daughter now adopted into the High King's forever family, His righteousness in return.
He gives me radical, astonishing, amazing grace! Just because He can!
HE is the High King of Heaven!

He Made Our Hearts to Seek Him as He Seeks Us!

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. ― C. S. Lewis

Great are you, O Lord, and exceedingly worthy of praise; your power is immense, and your wisdom beyond reckoning. And so we men, who are a due part of your creation, long to praise you – we also carry our mortality about with us, carry the evidence of our sin and with it the proof that you thwart the proud. You arouse us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you.
--Augustine, Bishop of Hippo

There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus. --Blaise Pascal

Are you looking for hope and help for your heart - at the deepest core of your being - today?
O, you may be a believer in Jesus Christ and a follower of Him serving Him BUT there are still moments and days when there is that unquiet and vacuum and unsatisfied desire that should cast us on our knees in great thanksgiving that this world IS NOT our home - that we are just passing through and that someday Jesus will welcome us to our new home where there will be no more pain and sorrow and lonliness and NO darkness at all because He Himself will be our light and will light that new city! That's a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving! That's a lot to focus on when the pain or sorrow or lonliness or darkness of this world closes in. He will push back the pain, sorrow, lonliness and darkness here too!

Winter or Spring?

Yesterday I spent several hours in the frigid cold shoveling snow. I shoveled and the snow continued to come so before long, there was more snow to shovel. I started the day shoveling snow, and I ended the day shoveling snow.

I thought about spring. I saw my poor frozen daffodils who stuck their heads out too early this year.

C.S. Lewis wrote a story with a setting much like my garden at the moment. There is snow and ice everywhere. My daffodils who woke up too soon are frozen as they stand. The land where Lewis’ story is set is Narnia. Narnia is the land where it is “always winter but never Christmas.” The point is that Narnia is frozen in all that is hard and cold about winter with none of the celebration and joy.

Narnia is an imaginary land where we can learn many spiritual lessons. Narnia is a world frozen in the spell of evil (cast by the White Witch). The land and the creatures who live there are all under the Witch’s spell. Her grip is strong, and there is only one power who can break her spell.

Lewis describes what is needed to break the spell of evil over Narnia:

“Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.”

We don’t live in Narnia. We live in the real world where sin has left such a mark and evil has such a terrible choke-hold that wrongs seem right, winter seems forever, hearts are cold and sorrows last on and on.

But spring will come bursting from beneath the cold and snow even in Pittsburgh!

Spring can also come to my heart and yours long before the seasons change. Jesus comes to push back the evil in my own heart. Jesus comes to make wrongs right. Jesus breaks the choke-hold of sin on my heart. Jesus brings warming love and grace to my cold heart. Jesus is the Lord of restoration, and He is on the move!