The practical problem about charity in our prayers is very hard work, isn't it? When you pray for Hitler and Stalin, how do you actually teach yourself to make the prayer real?
✦ The Hardest Question
Lewis does not begin with theology. He begins with honesty. It's very hard work, isn't it? The commandment to love your enemies is clear. Pray for those who persecute you — Jesus said it plainly. But Lewis asks the question every honest Christian has asked: how do you make it real? Not how do you say the words. How do you mean them. How do you pray for the ghastly creatures — the Hitlers, the Stalins, the ones whose evil is so visible — and not have the prayer be a performance of obedience rather than a genuine act of love?
Lewis does not pretend the answer is easy. He says it is very hard work. And then he offers two things that help him — not solutions, not formulas, but two handholds for the soul trying to climb this mountain honestly. 🙏
A continual grasp of the idea that one is only joining one's feeble little voice to the perpetual intercession of Christ, who died for those very men.
✦ Christ Died for Those Very Men
The first handhold: you are not generating the love from scratch. You are joining a river that is already flowing. The perpetual intercession of Christ — Hebrews 7:25, He always lives to make intercession — is already underway. For those very men. Not for the men they might have been. Not for some theoretical redeemable version of them. For the men they were. In their full horror. Christ died for them.
Your feeble little voice joins His. That is all. And your feeble little voice is enough — not because it is strong, but because the intercession it joins is infinite. This is what Smith Wigglesworth said on the canal: God wants us so badly that He has made the condition as simple as He possibly could. Even the prayer for your worst enemy does not depend on the size of your compassion. It depends on the size of His. 🙏
A recollection, as firm as one can make it, of all one's own cruelty which might have blossomed, under different conditions, into something terrible.
"You and I are not, at bottom, so different from these ghastly creatures."
✦ Not So Different
The second handhold is harder. Much harder. Lewis does not say "remember your small sins." He says remember the cruelty that is in you — the cruelty that, given different soil, different circumstances, different temptations, might have blossomed into something terrible. The word blossomed is deliberate. Evil does not appear fully formed. It grows. It starts as a seed — a judgment, a contempt, a small cruelty — and under the right conditions, it blooms into something ghastly.
You and I are not, at bottom, so different from these ghastly creatures. This is the sentence that separates Lewis from the moralists. He does not stand above the Hitlers and the Stalins and say "how do I find it in my heart to pray for them?" He stands beside them and says "how do I find it in my heart to pretend I am different?" The distance between the seed and the bloom is not moral superiority. It is circumstance and grace. Nothing else. 🙏
I remember, many years ago, learning this through personal experience. Being a young Christian, I remember judging a friend very harshly about some matters. Years later I faced the same circumstances — and I did not do any better than my friend.
I did not pay attention to the plank in my own eye.
Thanks to the correction of the Lord, my lack of compassion and understanding was exposed, and I had to deal with my wrong and trust the Lord to renew my heart. I realize now that judging or treating others with judgmental contempt is very much against what Jesus is telling us to do.
As C.S. Lewis states: "You and I are not, at bottom, so different from these ghastly creatures." Realizing that we are not so different makes Jesus' commandment so logical — and that we need the grace of God to keep us safe. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 🙏
✦ The Plank in My Own Eye
Le gave Lewis his proof. She judged a friend — harshly, as a young Christian, with the confidence of the one who has not yet been tested. And years later, life placed her in the same circumstances. And she did not do any better. The plank in her own eye — invisible when she was pointing at the speck in her friend's — was exposed by the Lord Himself.
This is not a story of failure. This is a story of mercy. Thanks to the correction of the Lord. He did not expose her to shame her. He exposed her to free her. The Potter saw the flaw in the clay — the lack of compassion, the judgmental contempt — and He brought it to the surface so He could reshape it. George Bowen's teaching alive in biography: our own volitions cannot purify us. The Potter had to show her what was there before He could remove it. And the reshaping was not self-improvement. It was trust the Lord to renew my heart. His work in her. Luther's faith. Bowen's inseparable pardon and power. 🙏
✦ Deliver Us From Evil — Including the Evil in Us
And then Le lands on the prayer that holds it all together: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. That prayer — prayed by millions every day, often without weight — becomes something entirely different in the mouth of the one who has seen her own cruelty bloom. It is not the prayer of the innocent asking to stay clean. It is the prayer of the one who knows what she is capable of.
Lewis said we are not so different from the ghastly creatures. The 500 denari soul knows this better than anyone. The size of what she was forgiven is the proof of what she was capable of. The seed was there. Under different conditions, it could have blossomed into something terrible. And that is precisely why she can pray for others without contempt — because she has been where they are. Not hypothetically. Personally. The friend she judged became her mirror.
Forgive, and you will be forgiven. She was forgiven first — 500 denari, at midnight, in a hospital in Lubbock. And the forgiveness taught her to forgive. Not because she became good enough to forgive. Because she was forgiven enough to see that she had to. Realizing that we are not so different makes Jesus' commandment so logical. The logic of the 500 denari soul — forgiven much, therefore loving much, therefore forgiving much. The arithmetic of grace, as always. 🙏
"You and I are not, at bottom, so different from these ghastly creatures. We need the grace of God to keep us safe."
C.S. Lewis & Le · From Bellegarde · Lead us not into temptationA Feeble Voice Joining His
You are not generating the love from scratch. You are joining the perpetual intercession of Christ — who died for those very men. Your feeble voice is enough, because the intercession it joins is infinite.
The Plank Exposed
She judged a friend harshly. Years later, the same circumstances — and she did no better. The Lord corrected not to shame but to free. The Potter exposed the flaw so He could reshape the clay. Trust the Lord to renew my heart.
Deliver Us From Evil
Not the prayer of the innocent. The prayer of the one who knows what she is capable of. The seed of cruelty is in all of us. Only grace prevents the bloom. Lead us not into temptation — because we are not so different.