Stepping in through the door that leads to Narnia is an epic experience...at least it sure would feel that way if I imagined it.
Imagine finding a door in your closet, behind all your coats and cardigans hanging there, reaching to find your way to something you've been told is there: a door to Narnia.
Narnia is a place unlike the world you currently live in. Narnia is ruled by Aslan the great Lion who loves and protects his inhabitants as a just and merciful King. He's the type of ruler who would, at any given moment, for any one of his inhabitants both big and small, lay down his own life to save theirs. Does your president lay his life down to save yours? Does your president even know your name? In Narnia the King knows his inhabitants by name.
Narnia is ruled by goodness, and since goodness reigns there is freedom to do all kinds of things like go for long horse rides through the woods and befriend whoever you come across and join new friends for dinner or build great halls for dancing and celebrating. There is no threat of anything getting stolen or people closing their hearts to you in hospitality when you need it. So much freedom allows for so much adventure. The inhabitants live as if there were nothing to fear in life, because in Narnia there is no fear under the King who knows all that goes on and is ready and willing to save you.
So in case you were vaguely imagining any other kind of Narnia less than that I wanted to set your perceptions straight. Imagine that is the door to Narnia at the back of your closet.
If that were true, would you venture to walk through that door?
What would you find?
Who would you be?
How would being a citizen of Narnia affect you and the person you are? Since who we are at present in this world is deeply impacted by our limitations and fears, what would change in Narnia?
Would you be the same person in Narnia as you are in the world you live in?
The door to Narnia is an observation worth pondering if it indeed does exist. If it's just fantasy and not real then it's not worth thinking about.
We want the truth because the truth in our minds will shape our lives as people who either step into Narnia or those that walk right by it.
What is the truth?
Is there a door to somewhere unlike the world we live in now?
Is there a door? How can we be sure...or assured that there is? If God said there is would you believe Him?
“So Jesus said again,
“I assure you: I am the door of the sheep.
I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
“I am the good shepherd. I know My own sheep, and they know Me,
My sheep hear My voice, I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish — ever! No one will snatch them out of My hand.”
John 10:7, 9, 11, 14, 27-28
--in this New Place behind the door there is no escaping the safety of the King. No one is ever too far from His watchful and protective presence. The inhabitants, or we the sheep, who enter through the door will find a new kind of life. A life that can be examined by the way we begin to live. No longer carrying our past lives full of mistakes and failures which were due to our fears in the world we lived in, but a new kind of life that shows itself in the way we treat one another and the way we drink in the reality of our new home through the door we walked into. If we find our lives unchanged in the new place, bringing with us the life we had into the life we are given through the door it would be rather strange to think that we have truly made it our home. We would be more like foreigners who do not belong. We may find it strange to notice all the differences, and it may take us some time to truly make the new place our home, but in our hearts we would desire the New Place more than the world we left behind. We begin to plant and produce things useful to our new neighbors as they had done for us when we first arrived. That is the difference between a citizen and a sojourner. A sojourner thinks that this New Place is temporary and not their real home so they will probably take from it as much as they can to bring back to their real home without investing in the kind of lifestyle a citizen would.
“Therefore, leaving the elementary message about the Messiah, let us go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, faith in God,...
For ground that has drunk the rain that has often fallen on it and that produces vegetation useful to those it is cultivated for receives a blessing from God.
But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and about to be cursed, and will be burned at the end.
For God is not unjust; He will not forget your work and the love you showed for His name when you served the saints — and you continue to serve them.”
Hebrews 6:1, 7-8, 10
--Which one is home and which one is temporary? The citizen adds to the life cultivated by the King of the New Place, but a sojourner stands at a distance without fully immersing into the life and culture of the New Place because it is not home. The sojourner may partake in some things or enjoy aspects of the New Place but in the end they eventually stop and discontinue their work with the other citizens. They do not continue when they no longer desire to stay. Those sojourners go back to the world they came from because that is their home, they are citizens of the Old Place.
If we become citizens of the New Place then we find that we are now sojourners in the Old Place. And we may go back temporarily for reasons only known to the King. But citizens of the New Place know that the King only commands what is good because His nature is goodness. So if going back as a sojourner to the Old Place, but as a citizen of the New Place, is asked of us then it is good and right for us to carry out whatever the King of the New Place asks of us. For our citizenship is made more permanent by our relationship to the King of our Home. The citizens of the New Place can go wherever the King calls us to because for us the King is able to reach us wherever we are and for any reason and for our protection. The King has promised us our citizenship no matter where we are, we are His people.
“Because God wanted to show His unchangeable purpose even more clearly to the heirs of the promise,
He guaranteed it with an oath,
so that through two unchangeable things,
in which it is impossible for God to lie,
we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us.
We have this hope as an anchor for our lives, safe and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain. Jesus has entered there on our behalf as a forerunner, because He has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.”
Hebrews 6:17-20
--I find myself looking for the door again at times, forgetting that I've been through the door and made into a citizen so that the search for the door is no longer necessary. I am what I was looking for already, sent back now to the Old Place for the mandate and commands given to me by my good King. I am sojourner now in the Old Place, yet still fully safeguarded in my identity as an heir elsewhere. So, when the time is right to be brought back home for good I will be ready and eager to see the King and present to Him what He had sent me to do.
Your will be done, my King who is also my Father. If home is where the heart is then my home is in Heaven with You though my body may be here. Hold my heart safe and secure with You while I carry out what Your will is down here.
"For where your treasure is,
there will your heart be also."
-Luke 12:34
Jmegrey
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