The most reluctant convert.
I would never claim to have the intellect of a man like CS Lewis, or perhaps his friend, John Tolkien, but I am suggesting that many of us have pondered the reason for life, and what happens after death, just as Lewis did. Unlike him, I have not been educated on the classics of Homer, Descartes, Cicero, or Plato, and more to the point, I would undoubtedly be lacking both the will and astuteness to master the pages of their works. However, the journey of faith that afflicted Clive Staples Lewis over many years is something that I can deeply relate to.
I am, in my own way, a philosopher of my own making. My teacher has always been the inner voice of my own troubled mind, which has pondered the structure of the material world and the possibility of the supernatural for decades. I never, ever, attributed any of the conclusions I came to with the certainty of a merciful God. I imagine that Lewis, like myself, could become angry and dismissive of those that I would describe as being part of the ‘happy-clappy’ brigade, those that seem to mindlessly sing hymns in sparsely occupied places of worship, songs that to me represented nothing more than the ritual tradition of mild torment. From atheist to agnostic, to a follower of Christ. How? What on earth led me to such a change in the later years of my life?
For me, like Lewis, it was intrigue in the supernatural that opened the door to the possibility of something greater, something that exists outside the realm of this world. If you are willing to open one door in order to seek answers, then surely, you are obliged to open them all? I look back now as I sit here writing this post and I can see that the answer was there all along, it was buried deep beneath a floor of denial, behind the walls of arrogance and ego. In the end, it was the supernatural that reached out to me, and my willingness to finally bend and break. I began to rebuild myself, slowly, but stubbornly, accepting the possibility of God, whilst still finding the path to Jesus a more troublesome step to take. This wasn’t done over a week, or a year; this was decades of soul searching. A private battle of stubborn denial that was slowly washed away by the inevitable cleansing of truth.
If someone was to ask me why I believe in God so deeply now, I would struggle to answer, not because I doubt, but because my own journey has been so very long, and in a way, so personally destructive. A wasted life, or a timely lesson? A redemption perhaps? I don’t know, I am not sure. We are all blessed with free will, and some people will make good from the moment they leave behind the innocent days of childhood. Some, like me, will make a mess of things for many years; years of mistake and regret, years that cannot be undone. In other ways I have been lucky, I found love, I found my soulmate and would be lost without her, but that doesn’t excuse the failures of my past.
Today I stumbled across a video on YouTube. The title is the same as this post, The Most Reluctant Convert. It is the story of Lewis’ conversion from staunch atheist, to believer, a follower of Jesus and a man of great faith. I sat and watched this relatively short film. At times, it was as if his inner thoughts and demons were the same ones that had plagued me for so long. His was a great mind, a huge intellect, mine is not. And yet, it seems we could have shared a conversation that mirrored each other’s thoughts. In a way, the film was able to offer a tangible perspective of a similar journey to my own. Not historically of course, but perhaps in offering the same signposts that I followed on my journey to where I am now. Maybe you would consider watching the film? It’s free on YouTube at the moment, and it should be available below this post. If the film fails to play from here then I urge you to seek it out. It has a special quality, one that seems able to convey the mind of the great man, and perhaps will offer you something of great value, like it did to myself.
Why do we deny truth? Billions of people continue to shun those gentle messages that are heaven sent. We do not have an excuse, we are all too often deliberately blind to what we are shown. That, ladies and gentlemen, is where we fail. None of us can ever be perfect in thought and deed, which is why God sent his only son, to take the punishment for our poor decisions, so that we might be forgiven and live in his grace after we die. It’s not a fairytale, it is quite simple, quite straightforward; it is truth. Follow your path if you must, but at least keep an open mind, listen to the inner voices and don’t ignore the signs…
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