views from the inside

Have you ever worked hard to decorate something, create a piece of art, plan and execute a festival or event? When you are doing these things it is next to impossible to see the true effect of it. Or maybe another way to state the last sentence would be to say there is no good way for you to be objective about what you have accomplished.

I wonder and believe to be true that we as people have no way of understanding who we really are in the order of creation. For example, we look at nature and see a stunning display of color, shape, and sound. We are awed by it and call it beautiful. But what if nature looks at people and calls us beautiful. What if nature realizes a truth that we are not able to observe because we are on the inside. That truth being that you and I are the sons of God. Maybe all of the rest of creation is in awe of you and I as we follow Christ and are even "hidden in Christ". I think people are far more beautiful than people can realize.

C.S. Lewis writes in his article The Weight of Glory "It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which...you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as now you meet...only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. ... There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal... it is with immortals we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors."

As we follow Christ daily we become the latter, without Christ we can only become the former. So, there is no room for those who follow Christ to be proud of themselves for without Christ we are monsters. In Christ we are being transformed into creatures of incredible glory and splendor such as now exists only in our minds as a thing we long for, believing it to be true, but with no way to comprehend the truth of its effect on us.

For today this is what is rattling in my mind
God be with you