Shipwrecked

C.S. Lewis Week: Part V

You also have a fatal flaw in your character. All the hopes and plans of others have again and again shipwrecked on your character just as your hopes and plans have shipwrecked on theirs.
It is no good passing this over some vague, general admission such as "Of course, I know I have my faults." It is important to realize that there is some really fatal flaw in you: something which gives the others just that same feeling of despair which their flaws give you. And it is almost certainly something you don't know about....But why, you ask, don't others tell me? Believe me, they have tried to tell you over and over again, and you just couldn't "take it."
-"The Trouble with 'X'", C.S. Lewis

One thing I love about C.S. Lewis is how he is so honest in his writing. It feels like you are sitting down with him at a local pub (and by "local", I mean Oxford, of course), with a cup of tea or a pint of beer, and he is just talking with you like a good friend, telling you things you need to hear but might be difficult to hear because they challenge you. There are so many writers that beat-around-the-bush that sometimes when I am reading I want to say "just say it!" C.S. Lewis just says it. He might go into an explanation to set up the background, first, but that only makes you grasp the truth even better.

Before we can be cured we must want to be cured.
-Mere Christianity

We tend to make excuses for ourselves a lot. To cover our flaws. We are too busy to change, not ready, afraid, or we rationalize that it's not harming anyone else. But instead of seeking God's help to do something about our own flaw, we think about other people's flaws too much. In his essay, C.S. Lewis encourages us to look to our own flaws for correction and to stop thinking about other people's faults. For it is with ourselves that we can do something, which is the next step in wisdom.

A handful of the books I have are collections of C.S. Lewis' essays. This excerpt is from such a collection. I read through this book again last week, during my breaks at work. I took it with me to Black 'n Brew for an iced coffee lunch break to read. Losing myself in his words, I longed for everyone to read these essays. To know truth and to feel convicted by it.
Even when some of these things are reminders, sometimes we need to be reminded more than we need to be introduced to something.