C. S. Lewis and the Presence of God

In his February 20, 1955 letter to Mary Willis Shelburne Lewis writes:

One mustn’t make the Christian life into a punctilious system of law, like the Jewish. Two reasons, (1.) It raises scruples when we don’t keep the routine (2.) It raises presumption when we do. Nothing gives one a more spuriously good conscience than keeping rules, even if there has been a total absence of all real charity & faith…

And of course the presence of God is not the same as the sense of the presence of God…It is the actual presence, not the sensation of the presence, of the Holy Ghost wh. begets Christ in us. The sense of the presence is a super-added gift for wh. we give thanks when it comes, and that’s all about it.

I’ve experienced the truth of the first paragraph in my own heart and mind in both its obvious and subtle forms.  I know what it is to be legalistic without charity and I know what it is to feel guilt over not measuring up to something that started out as a well-intentioned discipline.

Jesus tells us that He will never leave us nor forsake us; that He is with us always, even to the end of the age. If we believe this, and if we believe that the Trinity lives within those who are given new life in Christ, then we can acknowledge that the presence of God is not the same as the sense of the presence of God. I wonder if we might retitle Brother Lawrence’s little book from The Practice of the Presence of God to The Practice of the Acknowledgment of the Presence of God?

When I quote this line from Lewis, the presence of God is not the same as the sense of the presence of God, I often get the same reaction from others that I experienced the first time I read the words, “Why didn’t someone tell me this years ago?”

While I have known the truth of this both intellectually and experientially for many years, Lewis’s words brought me from black and white to Technicolor; they moved me from Kansas to Oz.

I suspect that we each have our own inward journal of the presence of God. After all, God is our Father and He draws us into relationship with Himself. Hopefully we also share in a collective journal as members of the Body of Christ, as brothers and sisters experiencing the koinonia of the Trinity.

There can be an expectation in Christian gatherings that all members will experience and respond to the presence of God in the same way; this is probably more the rule than the exception. (Perhaps 1 Corinthians Chapters 12 – 14 can help with this?) Can we learn to rejoice in the many responses to the presence of God in the church? Can we learn to respond to the presence of God in our own lives without self-consciousness, resting in Christ and trusting our brothers and sisters?

Acknowledging the presence of God, whether or not we sense the presence of God, expresses trust in the Word of God and the character of God. From the acknowledgment of His presence we can hopefully be a source of light and life in Christ to those around us.