Pause for Thought: 26 October
The Promise of Glory
Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself: ‘It is not for her to bandy compliments with her Sovereign’. I can imagine someone saying that he dislikes my idea of Heaven as a place where we are patted on the back. But proud misunderstanding is behind that dislike. In the end that face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of him is of no importance except in so far as it is related to how he thinks of us. It is written that we shall ‘stand before’ him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God, to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness, to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son – it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But it is so.
From The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis
The Promise of Glory
Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself: ‘It is not for her to bandy compliments with her Sovereign’. I can imagine someone saying that he dislikes my idea of Heaven as a place where we are patted on the back. But proud misunderstanding is behind that dislike. In the end that face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of him is of no importance except in so far as it is related to how he thinks of us. It is written that we shall ‘stand before’ him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God, to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness, to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son – it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But it is so.From The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis
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