As the Ruin Falls

All this flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love -- a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisioned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

-"As the Ruin Falls", C.S. Lewis

I must frustrate God so much. I can imagine that my behavior or thoughts must be so (for lack of a proper word) wishy-washy. Or, I guess I could say, emotional and affected by circumstance. One minute I am confident and content. The next minute I question everything about myself, my talents and abilities. Then I am reading Scripture and meditating on passages. Next thing I know I am slacking because I am too busy with something else. All this time I have this sense of "deserving" mentality (as we all do). But what do I do to deserve God's love? Absolutely nothing.

Yes, I helped the old lady through the doorway in the restaurant. But then an hour later I find myself growing impatient in the grocery line when it is so slow and I was in a rush. Everything good we do is accompanied by a many sinful things we do. And this goes on and on. Because we are human. We fail. We fall. We stumble.

I am not going to pretend that I don't have this "deserving" outlook. It is tucked away inside me so deep that I hardly realize it's there, until someone says something to me that puts me on edge. Or I will hear someone talking about their own version of how they deserve "this" or "that" to happen. And it brings to light my own feelings inside about this, and how I am wrong.

The greed to be loved is a fearful thing. -C.S. Lewis

No matter where in life we are, this is something we all struggle with, and yet do we find ourselves turning naturally to God for love, or to something else? This is the part that gets us. I resonate with the line from Lewis' poem; how we cannot crawl even one inch outside our own skin. We are safe and complacent inside our own selfish selves. We too often do not turn to the only One who can fill us with love. It's like we enjoy going on in self pity and hollowness. Why do we self inflict ourselves with misery?

God is right there. And right here. And He loves us.