Better than ... ?

 

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I have been listening to the audio-book version of C.S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain this month because it compliments the great sermon series that we've been hearing from the pulpit of our church on the Book of Job.  My audio-book progress was interrupted by other obligations this week, but I dove back in yesterday during a car-ride.

I must confess that I turned on the audio-book to escape my own thoughts.  All morning long I had been plagued by guilt at realizing that I have been silently critical of a fellow-Christian.  It's amazing how quickly we can succumb to that fatal temptation and self-righteously think we are better than someone else.  The fact that we are thinking we are better than    X    should be an immediate warning that we are not better than    X    at all, but I had been slow to recognize this.

Amazingly, I pacified my guilt by telling myself that I wasn't so bad for being judgmental of    X    because    Y    is judgmental of other people all the time and is vocal about it too!  A minute into these thoughts, I suddenly realized that I had fallen into the same trap all over again.  Instead of repenting of the sin, I had simply compounded it.  It was at this moment that I turned on the audio-book, thinking that this would sufficiently divert my attention from myself.  God has a funny sense of humor, though.  To think I could escape God by turning to C.S. Lewis was only further folly.  I turned on The Problem of Pain and heard exactly what I was thinking in Lewis' chapter on "Human Wickedness"...

"We suppose ourselves to be roughly not much worse than Y, whom all acknowledge for a decent sort of person, and certainly (though we should not claim it out loud) better than the abominable X.  Even on the superficial level we are probably deceived about this.  Don't be too sure that your friends think you as good as Y.  The very fact that you selected him for comparison is suspicious: he is probably head and shoulders above you and your circle."

The rest of the chapter was equally damning.  The Holy Spirit was determined to drive me toward repentance, and I promptly repented as I pulled up to my destination.  As I turned off the car, I asked God's forgiveness for ever thinking I was "better than" someone else and for thinking I could escape Him by turning to C.S. Lewis.

What an amazing and merciful God we serve!

The brief quotation above was taken from C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1996).