[KD Holmberg] When God Is in Pursuit

I’ve been a devotee of  C.S. Lewis since I was a child. I loved the worlds he created and even imagined slipping through the wardrobe to Narnia. Recently, I read a book about Lewis and The Inklings, the assembly of writers he gathered with in Oxford, England. Bandersnatch by Diana Pavlac Glyer takes you deep into their exploits. It feels voyeuristic, a fly on the wall in the well-worn room at Magdalen College where the inspired group met, and during their bawdy lunches at the Eagle and Child pub.

The author tells us in Bandersnatch that C.S. Lewis accepted Christianity as a child, but later declared himself an atheist. Reading about his journey back to Christ took my breath away. It was a familiar story.

It was my story.

I grew up in church, was baptized at eight, but wandered far away by high school. I explored other possibilities, and studied everything from The Rosicrucian Order to the Baha’is. And then I declared that God did not exist.

Lewis became distressed when he entered Oxford as he kept meeting intelligent, articulate men who turned out to be Christians. He wrote, “I was hideously shocked. Everything that I had labored so hard to expel from my own life seemed to have flared up and met me in my best friends.”

He became so anxious about it, he declared, “Really, a young Atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully. Dangers lie in wait for him on every side.”

I related to that sentiment when I drifted from the flock. At every turn, on every side, I would meet someone I admired for their intellect or hospitality and discover they were a Christian. Which deeply disturbed me.

One of my favorite parts of Bandersnatch is about Lewis’ dismay that the “dangers” were becoming increasingly insistent. Lewis had a gnawing sense that something was closing in on him. That God seemed to be “taking the offensive.”

I sucked in my breath reading that, because it was exactly the way I had felt.

I too had an irrefutable sense that God was on the offensive. Christians crossed my path so often, I looked to the sky and said, “You are not going to leave me alone, are you?”

Praise the Lord that he didn’t.

That’s how I pray for the lost that I love. That God would go on the offensive and pursue them as relentlessly, recklessly as he did C.S. Lewis and me. That they too would feel His presence at every turn, and that He would continually lead Christians into their lives to speak on His behalf.

Lewis wrote to a friend, “You’d better come on Monday at the latest or I may have entered a monastery.”

I love that. God was closing in and Lewis knew it. He just had to make that final commitment to Christ, and when he did, it became central to all aspects of his life and work.

Jesus told a parable about the shepherd with a hundred sheep. He leaves the ninety-nine to go after the one that was lost until he finds it. He then rejoices more over that sheep than the ninety-nine who did not go astray. Jesus said, “I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.”

I’m in good company with Mr. Lewis. We both caused joy in heaven!

Blessings,

KD Holmberg