Crayon wheels

Do you remember those elementary school crayon drawings you used to bring home from school and proudly hand to Mom, awaiting her gushing approval and the subsequent posting on the refrigerator?

Now do you remember looking back on those drawings as a teenager or adult, with a completely different understanding of how to draw a wheel or a car or an airplane or a flower? If you drew one now, it might actually resemble the real object!

I recently started C.S. Lewis' book The Problem of Pain. When mentioning my latest author of choice, a friend made the comment about how challenging it is to read some of Lewis' writings because of his vocabulary. As I read a few chapters this week, I found myself agreeing. However, one thing I greatly appreciate about C.S. Lewis is that he doesn't mince words and he doesn't fill the pages of his books with flowery, unnecessary descriptions. Every sentence has a point. It may take reading a few paragraphs down before the purpose of a particular point strikes you - and then it hits square on!

I came across this gem in my reading this week:

"Beyond all doubt, His idea of 'goodness' differs from ours; but you need have no fear that, as you approach it, you will be asked simply to reverse your moral standards. When the relevant difference between the Divine ethics and your own appears to you, you will not, in fact, be in any doubt that the change demanded of you is in the direction you already call 'better.' The Divine 'goodness' differs from ours, but it is not sheerly different; it differs from ours not as white from black but as a perfect circle from a child's first attempt to draw a wheel. But when the child has learned to draw, it will know that the circle it then makes is what it was trying to make from the very beginning."
- C.S. Lewis

How different our understanding of goodness is once we know the Lord and grow to know Him better. All the 'wheels' of goodness I used to draw are scribbles compared to the goodness of God.

I am thankful that God works out His goodness in our lives. His goodness is worthy of our praise. Everything He does is good. And when we do good, we imitate God.

Let us study His goodness, praise His goodness, and model our lives after Him.