What Jesus has in store - by Elizabeth Reynolds
I just finished reading the last book of the Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis: The Last Battle. Despite being a children’s classic, this story is jam-packed with theology. All the Narnia books are, but his one in particular. It contains thoughts and suppositions of the last days and then imaginings and ideas of heaven and what the New Earth will be like.
There are many devotions I could pull from this book, but one of the things that really stood out to me is something that Aslan said to all the Earth-children who are friends of Narnia when they reach a place that you could say is a parallel to heaven. (If you know these books well, you’ll know that whenever Aslan is around, your heart awaits eagerly to hang upon every precious, mysterious and wonderful word he says.)
When the children had experienced the most wonderful fruit they’ve ever tasted, run for miles and miles across glorious countryside without feeling tired or afraid, swam effortlessly up a glistening waterfall and felt an overflowing, indescribable sense of joy and ecstasy, Aslan turns to them and says, “You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be.”
It is not long after that, that the book ends and so we do not know what wonders Aslan has in store for them, but we do know what he has already given them, which is already more wonderful than you can imagine. And then he goes and says this – that he means for them to be more happy!
Oh how Jesus wants us to be happy. There is so much He has in store for us – we can’t even begin to imagine it.
1 Corinthians 2:9 says:
However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”
the things God has prepared for those who love him.
This piece of speech from Aslan at this moment of the story, made my heart soar, knowing full well that Aslan the lion is Jesus in our world. When Aslan told the children, “You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be,” I felt Jesus saying this directly to me.
The only criteria for the people and creatures of Narnia to be able to enter this glorious afterlife seemed to be whether when they met Aslan face-to-face, they responded with fear and hatred, or with fear and love.
It was said by author Mark Eddy Smith that “Lewis and Jesus have collaborated to create Narnia so that those of us who read the Chronicles might have a slightly better chance of loving Jesus when we encounter Him… and that although we may be filled with fear and trembling in His presence, we have come to know Him too well for fear to overwhelm our love.”
Elizabeth Reynolds