One of my favorite scenes in Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia takes place in the second book (published order, of course), as Lucy wakes and walks among the softly swaying trees of the moonlit forest. She knows the subtle rustling in the birches’ silvery leaves is the stirring of sleeping souls and seeks to rouse them. It is a magical scene, full of aching desire. She has returned to Narnia, only to find that it is hundreds of years since her first visit and that the magic she once knew there has fallen asleep. The Dryads and Hamadryads slumber in forgetfulness, the talking animals are in hiding and the memory of Aslan is like a fading dream. “Lucy felt that at any moment she would begin to understand what the trees were saying. But the moment did not come.” I almost feel physical pain in my heart as I read this scene and recognize a similar longing for my Lord to communicate in my “everyday” world.
But I think the scene is actually reversed in our world. We are the slumbering ones. We are the sleepers, too dull to hear the voices all around us. It is creation who seeks to awaken us. And its testimony is constant, in the heavens above, in the earth below, and in the law etched upon our hearts. A loquacious herald is the world around us. She speaks in prose and in poetry. From the simple wonder of water to the staggering majesty of granite walls that rise thousands of feet from the lush valley floor below. There are paragraphs of meaning all around us.
Scripture declares that creation renders us without excuse, that “there is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.” (Psa. 19:3) We can never flee from the presence of the Word, and He is never silent. Why, then, are we so deaf? What accounts for the seeming silence in the things around us? Why is it so common to not hear the testimony of creation, to not see the stunning Personality through the beauty of the world? There’s a brokenness to our receptors, both innate and willful. Blind are we born into a world of color. Deaf do we walk among a choir bursting with song.
On top of this native numbness is the constant drone of faithless narratives with which we’ve been assaulted all our lives. We’ve been feasted at the table of technology till we’ve lost our taste for the divine. Our pragmatic souls revel in a world of things that “work”, and the god of science has waved her cold, stiff hands, dismissing the need for anything more. We shiver inside but can’t find the warmth in manmade things.
But piercing through this darkness is the gracious ray of revelation, sight from the One who made our eyes, words from Him Who made our ears. “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17), and “…He upholds the universe by the word of His power.” (Heb. 1:3) Just these two facts alone are stunning shafts of light, for they declare that nothing just “is.” The Scriptures depict a God of active presence, Who “opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing.” (Psa. 145:16) Intimately involved, He is the “cause” that produces each illuminating effect! We must not allow the descriptions of sightless men to mute our God’s miraculous maintenance of the world around us.
Do you feel a battle within you as you read these words? Is it hard to believe there’s magic in these mundane things and eloquence in the world around you? “This persuasion is not from Him who calls you” (Gal. 5:8) That passage refers to the influence of those who would mask the grace of God in the gospel. What I’m writing about isn’t the gospel. It isn’t the good news that sets us free. But could it be that that news often feels so far off and distant because we fail to recognize His ever-present activity each moment of our lives? The one Who sends the sunshine and the rain is He Who was crushed for our transgressions.
Just as grace has given our hearts the eyes to see and the ears to hear the sweetness of the gospel message, may it also give us the ability to recognize His presence in the here and now. May we step out into the world He has made, using not the manual of faithless man as our grid of interpretation, but the words of Him who made it all. Let us pray with the Psalmist, “Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning.” (Psa. 143:8), and obey our Savior when He calls us to “Look at the birds of the air,” and “consider the lilies of the field” (Matt. 6:26 & 28) that we might know His ever-present love.
