Lewis: God Is the End, Not the Means to an End

A Grief ObservedHere’s a very timely reminder from C. S. Lewis that God is not some convenient prop we can use to achieve whatever else we want in life or eternity. He, in fact, is the goal of life; knowing Him is what it’s all about. As Lewis states it in A Grief Observed, the most personal of all his books, as it deals with the loss of his wife,

He [God] can’t be used as a road. If you’re approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you’re not really approaching Him at all.

That’s what was really wrong with all those popular pictures of happy reunions “on the further shore”; not the simple-minded and very earthly images, but the fact that they make an End of what we can get only as a by-product of the true End.

Yes, knowing God leads to all kinds of blessings, but if we focus on the blessings rather than the One who gives everything else its meaning, we miss it all. He is the reason for life, both on this earth and in eternity.