C. S. Lewis: On Forgiveness; A Slip of the Tongue

Both these essays speak to each reader personally, no matter where one is in one’s relationship to God.   We each want a healthy spiritual life, yet each has a certain unease as to where we are at.  What is the way to a more fulfilling and fruitful Christian life?  

The first essay underscores the centrality of personal forgiveness.  Christ emphasizes that a person is not forgiven unless that person forgives those who have sinned against him.  Forgiveness is quite a different thing from excusing; the latter seeks to understand and make allowance for; forgiveness erases the acts from one’s thinking,  as though they had never occurred.  Lewis writes: “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in us.” To do this requires complete surrender to God.  Lewis concludes:

"This is hard.  It is perhaps not so hard to forgive a single great injury.  But to forgive provocations of daily life–to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son–how can we do it?  Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us.  We are offered forgiveness on no other terms.  To refuse it is to refuse God’s mercy for ourselves.  There is no hint of exceptions and God means what He says." 

Lewis speaks from personal experience as his housekeeper.  Mrs Moore, was a constant source of irritation to him. 

“A Slip of the Tongue,” like “On Forgiveness,” indicts a half-hearted Christianity that makes for an unsatisfying spiritual experience.  In our innermost being we hope that our Christian commitment will not deprive us of any of the material advantages to life.  And we do not want to be viewed by others as a religious fanatic. The temptation is “to look eagerly for the minimum that will be accepted.”  

The proper attitude again is to make complete commitment to God, holding nothing back.  Lewis writes:

". . . . He claims all, because He is love and must bless.  He cannot bless us unless He has us.  When we try to keep within us an area that is our own, we try to keep an area of death.  Therefore, in love, He claims all.  There is no bargaining with Him."

    Paul’s attitude epitomizes the correct one: “I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I that 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.” (Gal. 2:20)

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