Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly. I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain the air is clear and your mind is clear. As you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. 

Aslan in The Silver Chair by CS Lewis

“O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you?

Jesus Luke 9:41

Romans 1:20 says that God’s invisible attributes have been clearly perceived in things that have been made. But it strikes me that as we go out into the world of work, the reality of God becomes murky. That is why I thought of Aslan instructing Jill before he sends her into Narnia. She is on a mountain with Aslan in a place that seems heavenly, receives instructions that she is to follow, and is exhorted to remember them often. Aslan is warning her that when she goes into Narnia it will be hard for her to think clearly about Him and what is true and necessary. I feel like Lewis is capturing what life is like for us in the world, especially the world of work. The air is thick and murky and it requires us to take great care to not be confused in our minds.

In this same vein, I thought of Jesus’s expression of exasperation after hearing from a father about his demon-possessed son and how the disciples were not able to cast it out. I wonder if this is about more than this incident. Is this a window into Jesus dealing with living in the world after residing in heaven? Is He expressing his own frustration with the ways of the world that distorts the reality of His heavenly Father?

This worldly dynamic explains why the desert Fathers thought that they needed to withdraw from society in order to connect with God. They too were tired of bearing with the world and they sought to be in a place of clearer air. But we are called to be in the world and not of the world, So we need to be able to connect with God while we are in places of thicker air.

So what does it look like to take great care that our work world does not confuse our minds? We first need to recognize our environment and take steps to counter its tendency to obscure God’s presence. Here is where spiritual disciplines play a crucial role. We need to regularly apply ourselves to certain practices that connect us to the Holy Spirit and the reality of God with us. This is like breathing clearer air in the midst of our days, air that we need to do our work well for the glory of God.

Are we aware of how murky and thick of an environment that we are working in or are we used to it? We are not like Jesus who keenly felt the contrast between heaven and earth. People have a hard time practicing spiritual disciplines consistently. I wonder if a greater appreciation of our environment would help to motivate us to apply ourselves to breathing that clearer air found in spiritual disciplines.

I would love to connect with you about these posts if they have stirred any thoughts or questions. Take a minute, shoot me an email at bo@leavenedlives.org, and let’s see where that takes us.