“From beyond all place and time, out of the very Place, authority will be given you: the strengths that once opposed your will shall be obedient fire in your blood and heavenly thunder in your voice. Overcome us that, so overcome, we may be ourselves: we desire the beginning of your reign as we desire dawn and dew, wetness at the birth of light.” (C.S. Lewis. The Great Divorce. New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1946, p. 104.)
God intends to redeem and harness the powerful passions in me for His kingdom purposes. Often though, the powerful creative urge in me has been bent so that I am tempted to misdirect and misuse it.
How do I respond to this bent? Sometimes I deny those passions. Perhaps I pretend they aren’t there. But like any unacknowledged source of pressure, it will eventually find a way out. And having come from places of hiding, it won’t likely be good. At other times, I may follow the bent direction of these passions, injuring myself and others.
These two responses are both false. The faithful response is to welcome God’s healing, redeeming work so that “the strengths that once opposed your will shall be obedient fire in your blood and heavenly thunder in your voice.” I long for my life and my work to be moved by the fiery power of redeemed passion.
