The Forest and the Trees
The next two paragraphs (5 & 6) of The Weight of Glory contain a famous line of thought, one of Lewis’s signature ideas, which is also found in Mere Christianity. Here’s how he puts it there, in the chapter titled ‘Hope’: ‘If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.’
Here, in The Weight of Glory, he says that the beautiful things which we experience in this world are ‘the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited’. They are ‘good images of what we really desire’ (emphasis mine).
This was the path through which the Lord brought Lewis to Himself, and it was also my own: the awareness of ‘the desire for our own far-off country’, the intense longing that beauty kindled up but which no beauty in this world was enough to satisfy, and the recognition, once face-to-face with the Gospel.
In the present series of posts I am exploring the ways in which we can cultivate holy desires as our main incentive for living a life pleasing to the Lord. Since for a lot of us expectations, far from being helpful in that regard, are – on the contrary – stifling, irritating, an obstacle to be overcome, it makes a lot of sense to seek our spark elsewhere, and for the likes of us Desire is it.
What I’d like to focus on here is Lewis's point that if we mistake the objects through which our desire for heaven is awakened for the objects of that desire, they ‘will betray us if we trust to them’. They ‘are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers’.
And that is so easily done. It is so very easy to not see the forest for the trees, to think that the good and beautiful things of this world are what we’re after, instead of noticing and remembering what they are really telling us.
We can get stuck at the edge of the woods forever, walking aimlessly from tree to tree, or choosing one in particular to sit down and camp under, or to chop down and plate with gold and silver.
The trees however are there to open up paths towards the heart of the forest, and their purpose is to lead us ‘further up and further in’ – to where on each side of the river grows the Tree of Life, giving its fruit every month year round, and healing the nations with its leaves (Revelation 22:1-2).
Thinking back on your life so far, what kind of trees do you tend to mistake for this life-giving forest? Have any of them already broken your heart? What did you place your hopes in, what did you run to, what did you work hard for, only to see it fail to deliver the nourishment and remedy you expected?
Praise the Lord for any of us who have never been through this sort of heartbreak, and I hope and pray that every person reading who has experienced it will receive healing, wisdom and direction from God. I pray for all of us to be granted the discernment we need in order to not confuse the signs with our destination, but to keep pressing on with honesty, humility, gratitude and courage.
