May 2016

In Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis tells the story of his conversion from atheism to Christianity. Unlike some instantaneous conversions, Lewis came to faith in Christ through a journey searching for truth. He was initially converted to theism, and a little over two years later became a Christian. Looking back at this process, Lewis wrote:

The last stage in my story, the transition from mere Theism to Christianity, is the one on which I am now least informed. Since it is also the most recent, this ignorance may seem strange. I think there are two reasons. One is that as we grow older we remember the more distant past better than what is nearer. But the other is, I believe, that one of the first results of my Theistic conversion was a marked decrease (and high time, as all readers of this book will agree) in the fussy attentiveness which I had so long paid to the progress of my own opinions and the states of my own mind. For many healthy extroverts self-examination first begins with conversion. For me it was almost the other way round. Self-examination did of course continue. But it was (I suppose, for I cannot quite remember) at stated intervals, and for a practical purpose; a duty, a discipline, an uncomfortable thing, no longer a hobby or a habit. To believe and to pray were the beginning of extroversion. I had been, as they say, “taken out of myself”…¹

How delightful that God “takes us out of ourselves” as He draws us to Himself, so that we can come to know Him, the Lord of all.

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

GALATIANS 2:20 (ESV)

¹ C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, The Shape of My Early Life, Harcourt, Inc.: New York, 1955, pp. 232-233.