There are only two kinds of people in the end; those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done’ and those whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done’ –C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis was one of my favorite authors and theologians in my early years. He had insight that few could match. I warmed to him maybe because he was a lay theologian, that is he had no formal training in theology. He was one of us who was unpolluted by the religious hierarchy. It all just came natural to him.  His writings gave me the courage to also personally speak out  about religious matters.  This fact made some of my religious teachers somewhat uncomfortable as I often asked questions that they really didn’t wish to answer. His book entitled Mere Christianity helped me form my early personal prospective of God and what my relationship with him would be. C.S.  died in 1963 at the age of 64. I was just seventeen at the time!

“Thy will be done”  is part of the most famous prayer in Christianity given to us through the direct words of Jesus Christ. It is known as the Lord’s Prayer. In that prayer we learn that we are to do the things he taught us so that his kingdom in heaven can happen on earth.  Martin Luther, because of his personal feelings of abject worthlessness, tried to turn these words upside down by saying “The good and gracious will of God is done indeed without our prayer; but we pray in this petition that it may be done among us also.” Ironically C.S. Lewis, along with many others, decided to that these words were to be taken more literally than the Luther’s very abstract view.

One of the critical things that God gave us when we were created is free will. That is we can do what we decide. There is no pre-ordained path for our lives as Calvin and others suggest.  He leaves it to us as to what we will do with the life he gives us. We can choose to follow Jesus’ examples (some would say will) or we go out on our own. What C.S. Lewis is saying in these words is if we don’t choose to do what God asks you to do but instead choose your own will way, which usually contains a strong self-centered content) then those actions will determine how God judges us. There is another saying that teaches the same lesson and that is

You Make The Bed You Lie In

In other words your circumstance are usually the result of your actions and nothing more. Thank you C.S for being one of my early mentors. You taught me much…