Me: I don’t know if I should try this or not?
Prodigal: Well, I am not sure. Just tell a story and then we can come back to it.
Me: Works for me.
This is from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
When I say “discovered”, I mean really discovered: not simply said in parrot-fashion. Of course, any child, if given a certain kind of religious education, will soon learn to say that we have nothing to offer to God that is not already His own and that we find ourselves failing to offer even that without keeping something back. But I am talking of really discovering this: really finding out by experience that it is true.
Now we cannot, in that sense, discover our failure to keep God’s law except by trying our very hardest (and then failing). Unless we really try, whatever we say there will always be at the back of our minds the idea that if we try harder next time we shall succeed in being completely good. Thus, in one sense, the road back to God is a road of moral effort of trying harder and harder. But in another sense it is not trying that is ever going to bring us home. All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, “You must do this. I can’t.”
Psalm 63:4-5
Thus will I bless you while I live; lifting up my hands, I will call upon your name. As with the riches of a banquet shall my soul be satisfied, and will exultant lips my mouth shall praise you.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
