Growing Lumps into Wings

"For mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people even here and now and will, in the end, improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine. God became man to turn creatures in to sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. It is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better but like turning a horse into a winged creature. Of course, once it has got its wings, it will soar over fences which could never have been jumped and thus beat the natural horse at its own game. But there may be a period, while the wings are just beginning to grow, when it cannot do so: and a that stage the lumps on the shoulders -- no one could tell by looking at them that they are going to be wings -- may even give it an awkward appearance." (C.S. Lewis, Nice People or New Men?)

On Spiritual Nudity

Thought that'd get your attention!

C.S. Lewis said somewhere, "Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities." (One of you Lewis-philes can tell me where that reference is from.) We live in an 'eros' soaked culture. And so our culture is filled with false intimacy. Pornography at the click of a mouse. Want true love? Just get your free personality profile over at e-harmony! Want Christian community? Just pop over to the mega church where there is a service that meets all your needs and a prayer partner waiting at the end of the pew.

Beloved, sex is easy and marriage is hard. Why? Because of sin and the fall, that which brings true joy and delight takes toil. Christian love, 'agape' love, is what brings true intimacy. And it is hard work. Covenant work. It means you'll have to live real life with real people in real time. It means you'll have to bare your soul, or as Lewis put it, you'll have to get 'naked'. You'll have to bear with one another in love. You'll have to confess your sins one to another. You'll have to give of your talents, your gifts, your money, your homes. You'll have to sacrifice your time. You'll have to take time off work. Your kid might miss soccer practice. You'll have to submit to your leaders. You'll have to love your neighbor as yourself. It requires transparency and personal revelation. Without it we are settling for cheap intimacy, superficial relationships, and covered hearts and souls.