I read once that Steven
King had an epiphany when his daughter was 13. And no, I am not a fan of horror
and there is nothing written by King on my bookshelf. Most of his stuff, from
all I have seen, probably isn’t Christian strengthening material and I will
leave it at that. Compared to some romance novels, his work might actually be
better but that is another lesson and far from my point.
As I was saying King realized he hadn’t written anything his 13-year-old
daughter would read. This inspired him to write The Eyes of the Dragon. A friend of mine convinced me that since I
had a love of fantasy this might be a King book that I would enjoy. I was surprised that I did and also that it
had several strong positive messages in it.
At one point in the story,
a young prince attends a banquet. Afterward, his mother tells him he did well,
but he didn’t use his napkin the way he should. He, of course, points out that
many of the other powerful men at the banquet didn’t use proper etiquette.
She explains that these
little things make a difference because together they shape how a man will end
up. She shows the young prince the word god and the word dog. They both use the
same letters but the way they are arranged changed everything. She explains
that men can by their actions become god (small g) or dog, depending on how
they arrange their lives.
This brings us to our
Scripture in Psalm 82. We see a proclamation that God says we are gods as
children of the Most High, but we are going to die like men.
We were designed to be
something special in God’s economy. We were, if I dare say, meant to be gods
and goddesses (not in the pagan sense, but in that we were the children of
God).
Mankind blew that, but God
has made a way to restore it through Jesus.
So, what are you going to
do, how are you going to arrange your life?
In conclusion, I would
like to quote a very deep theological truth from CS Lewis’s book The Weight of
Glory: (listen carefully)
“It is a serious thing to
live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest
most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if
you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and
a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long
we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these
destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is
with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all
of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all
politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.
Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to
ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with,
marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Weight
of Glory
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