Letters to Malcolm; Chiefly on Prayer by CS Lewis

One of my favorite authors is CS Lewis.  I have read almost everything that he has published with the exception of Letters to Malcolm.  Recently,  my friend Sondie had posted on her blog that she was in the midst of reading it.  Well, I looked up on my shelf and there it sat just waiting for me to read it as well.  I pulled it down and engulfed it within hours.  Lewis is having a series of dialogues with a friend named Malcolm.  This book is a little bit different from your normal pick up at a Christian Bookstore Book on prayer.  It is more of a philosophical, metaphysical discussion that is peppered with profound statements on prayer.  On page 21 he says, 

"We have unveiled.  Not that any veil could have baffled this sight.  The change is in us.  The passive changes to the active.  Instead of merely being known, we show, we tell, we offer ourselves to view.  To put ourselves on a personal footing with God could in itself and without warrant, be nothing but presumption and illusion.  But we are taught that it is not; that it is God that gives us that footing.  For it is by the Holy Spirit that we cry "Father."  By unveiling, by confessing our sins and 'making known' our requests , we assume the high rank of persons before Him.  And He, descending, becomes a Person to us.  But I should not say 'becomes.'  In Him there is no becoming.  He reveals Himself as Person:  or reveals that in Him which is Person."  

Lewis is a master at taking the philosophical underpinnings of a concept and masterly

crafting the metaphysical with the here and now, the application, the practical. Have you ever

thought of yourself as being "unveiled" in prayer? It brings to mind the wedding ceremony where

the groom pulls back the veil of his beloved to reveal her face. Isn't that always a poignant moment?

Then Lewis says that God is the God of the personal. He is a person. He is not a concept, fate, or

destiny. He is a personal God who personally unveiled Himself to us in the person of Christ the

incarnate one. God became man. Therefore we can approach the throne, unveil ourselves and have

no fear. God cares about us personally, because He is a person. God the Father, God the Son, and

God the Holy Spirit have been having personal communion throughout eternity past and present.

This is the Theological perspective that gives us the assurance that the God of the Bible is not

just an "emanation" of a god, He is not just an impersonal "force," He is not us! If any of these

things were true He could not be a God who personally tends, loves, and delights in His

children.

Lewis has insights like this one throughout the book. Read it and chew on it, digest it, and

meditate on it. Not only all of those things, but then...Pray.