Influencing the Course of Events: A Lewis “Scrap”

God in the DockCombing through C. S. Lewis’s essays to find pertinent quotes for the paper I will be presenting at the C. S. Lewis Foundation’s summer conference, I came upon what might be called a little scribbling that I don’t remember ever reading before. It’s in the collected essays entitled God in the Dock and is called simply “Scraps.”

These seem to be just odds-and-ends comments that Lewis saw fit to put on paper, perhaps just for fun, or for future reference to use in other pieces. I’m not sure if this particular “scrap” found its way into another essay (I’m not yet Lewis-omniscient) but it works beautifully for the theme of my paper, which focuses on the responsibility of Christians to speak out in the public square.

Here is that “scrap”:

“Praying for particular things,” said I, “always seems to me like advising God how to run the world. Wouldn’t it be wiser to assume that He knows best?”

“On the same principle,” said he, “I suppose you never ask a man next to you to pass the salt, because God knows best whether you ought to have salt or not. And I suppose you never take an umbrella, because God knows best whether you ought to be wet or dry.”

“That’s quite different,” I protested.

“I don’t see why,” said he. “The odd thing is that He should let us influence the course of events at all. But since He lets us do it in one way I don’t see why He shouldn’t let us do it in the other.”

All is not settled in public affairs until we make our decisions. We do have an influence on how our society functions and on the path it will take in the future. Christians are to be involved in every aspect of society, whether it be education, entertainment, business, or politics.

I’m thinking of using this Lewis quote as the starting point for my paper. I love searching for nuggets and finding ones such as this.