Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive
Chapter 2
Seeing Our Way Clearly: The Eyes of the Heart
Key Verse: I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. (Ephesians 1:8)
HOW CAN WE REALLY SEE?
Page 21. Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
Page 22. The first line grabs me by the throat. “Therefore, we do not lose heart.” Somebody knows how to not lose heart? I’m all ears. For we are losing heart. All of us. Daily.
??? – Do you agree with Eldridge’s assessment that “we ARE losing heart. All of us. Daily.” Why or why not?
Page 22-23. So, how, Paul—how? How do we not lose heart? “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. (2 Cor. 4:18) What? I let out a sigh of disappointment. Now that’s helpful. “Look at what you cannot see.” That sounds like Eastern mysticism, that sort of wispy wisdom dripping in spirituality but completely inapplicable to our lives. Life is an illusion. Look at what you cannot see. What can this mean? Remembering that a little humility can take me a long way, I give it another go. This wise old seer is saying that there is a way of looking at life, and that those who discover it are able to live from the heart no matter what. How do we do this? By seeing with the eyes of the heart. “I pray…that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened” (Eph. 1:18).
??? – How do you look at life? From a “heart” perspective or a “head” perspective?
SEEING WITH THE HEART
Pages 23-24. We children of the Internet and the cell phone and the Weather Channel, we think we are the enlightened ones. We aren’t fooled by anything—we just want the facts. The bottom line. So proposition has become our means of saying what is true and what is not. And proposition is helpful… for certain things. Sacramento is the capital of California; water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit; your shoes are in the front room, under the sofa. But proposition fails when it comes to the weightier matters in life. While it is a fact that the Civil War was fought between the years of 1861 and 1865, and while it is also a fact that hundreds of thousands of men died in that war, those facts hardly describe what went on at Bull Run or Antietam, at Cold Harbor, or Gettysburg. You don’t even begin to grasp the reality of the Civil War until you hear the stories, see pictures from the time, visit the battlefields, watch a film like Glory.”
How much more so when it comes to the deep truths of the Christian faith. God loves you; you matter to him. That is a fact, stated as a proposition. I imagine most of you have heard it any number of times. Why, then, aren’t we the happiest people on earth? It hasn’t reached our hearts. Facts stay lodged in the mind, for the most part. They don’t speak at the level we need to hear. Proposition speaks to the mind, but when you tell a story, you speak to the heart. We’ve been telling each other stories since the beginning of time. It is our way of communicating the timeless truths, passing them down.
??? – What difference does it make whether we look at the world primarily from a prepositional/ “mind” perspective, or primarily from a story/“heart” perspective?
MYTHIC REALITY
After offering this title Eldridge states, “And already I’ve lost many of you. For most of us rationalists, the word means, “not true.” Isn’t that what you think when you hear someone say, “Oh, that’s just a myth”? Meaning, that’s not factually true. But myth is a story, like a parable, that speaks of Eternal Truths. I am not using myth in a technical way, referring to ancient Greek mythology. I am using it more broadly, more inclusively, to mean “a story that brings you a glimpse of the eternal” or “any story that awakens your heart to the deep truths of life.” (Pages 24-24) Eldridge goes on to say that he would include Jesus’ parables, Star Wars, and The Lord of the Rings among such “myths.” Eldridge quotes former Wheaton College president, Clyde Kilby, to further explain his meaning, “Myth is the name of a way of seeing, a way of knowing.” Not fantasy, not lies, but things coming to us from beyond the walls of this world.
??? – What impact, if any, does Eldridge’s definition of myth, have on your way of viewing reality?
THINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM
Eldridge says that all myths point out Three Eternal Truths: The first is this: Things are not what they seem: There is a whole lot more going on than meets the eye. Eldridge gives a prime example from real life: The two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus, believe that Jesus is dead, even though he is walking WITH them!!!
??? – Of what importance in our daily lives is it to recognize that “things are not what they seem”?
A BATTLE IS UNDER WAY
The second, more urgent quality to every true myth is that: We are at war!
Key Quote: “Christianity isn’t a religion about going to Sunday School, potluck suppers, being nice, holding car washes, sending our second hand clothes off to Mexico—as good as those things might be. This is a world at war. Something large and immensely dangerous is unfolding all around us, we are caught up in it, and above all we doubt we have been given a key role to play. Do you think I’m being too dramatic? Consider the tale told in the book of Daniel, chapter 10”. Daniel had a vision that he didn’t understand—we can all relate to that. (Eldridge contends we don’t understand 90 percent of what happens to us either. So he prayed and fasted for three weeks—and nothing happened! Why? What is Daniel to think? That He’s blowing it or God is holding out on him? The angel shows up on the 21st day, out of breath, and in sort of an apology he explains that God had dispatched him to answer the prayer the moment he prayed—three weeks earlier! Where was the angel—locked in a battle with a demonic power of dreadful strength that tried to keep him from coming. Eventually, he had to get the help of Michael the archangel to overcome the evil force. (Page 30-32) This is proof of Eternal Truth # 2 “This is a world at war.”
Key Quote: “The reason we love The Chronicles of Narnia, or Star Wars or The Matrix or The Lord of the Rings is that they are telling us something about our lives that we never, ever get on the evening news. Or from most pulpits. This is our most desperate hour. Without this burning in our hearts, we lose the meaning of our days. It all withers down to fast food and bills and voice mail and who really cares anyway? Do you see what has happened? The essence of our faith has been stripped away. The very thing that was to give our lives meaning and protect us –this way of seeing—has been lost. Or stolen from us. Notice that those who have tired to wake us up to this reality were usually killed for it: the prophets, Jesus, Stephen, Paul, most of the disciples, in fact. Hast it ever occurred to you that someone was trying to shut them up?
Things are not what they seem. This is a world at war. Now for the most stunning news of all.” (Pg. 32)
??? – If we take it seriously that we are engaged in war—and that the devil IS our Enemy, then how will it change the way we live?
THE WEIGHT OF YOUR GLORY
Key Quote: “Last, but not least, not by a long shot, every mythic story shouts to us that in this desperate hour we have a crucial role to play. That is the Third Eternal Truth, and it happens to be the one we most desperately need if we are ever to understand our days…..You see this throughout Scripture: a little boy will slay the giant, a loudmouthed fisherman who can’t hold down a job will lead the church, and a whore with a golden heart is the one to perform the deed that Jesus asked us to tell “wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world” (Mark 14:9. Things are not what they seem. We are not what we seem. Of all the Eternal Truths we don’t believe, this is the one we doubt most of all. Our days are not extraordinary. They are filled with the mundane, with hassles mostly. And we? We are….a dime a dozen. Nothing special really. Probably a disappointment to God. But as (C.S.) Lewis wrote, “The value of …myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity.’” You are not what you think you are. There is a glory to your life that your Enemy fears, and he is hell-bent on destroying that glory before you can act on it. This part of the answer will sound unbelievable at first; perhaps it will sound too good to be true; certainly, you will wonder if it is true for you. But once you begin to see with those eyes, once you have begun to know it is true form the bottom of your heart, it will change everything.” (Pages 32-34 excerpts)
??? – What would be the impact on our lives if we believed that “we have a crucial role to play?”
SEEING CLEARLY
Key Quote: “Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years. (C.S. Lewis. The Weight of Glory) Lewis is not being cute; he is as sober as a man can be. That evil enchantment of worldliness is the way of looking at life given to us by the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, the modern era. Science as our interpreter. The Matrix. We all drank deeply from that cup—the church included—and now the whole kingdom lies under a spell like Narnia in winter, like the sleeping kingdom in Sleeping Beauty. Or as the Bible has it, “The whole world lies under the power of the evil one.” (1 John 5:19 NRSV) We’ve never stopped to think about it. How? How does the whole world lie under the power of the Evil One? They don’t see. They are in a fog, under a spell. Their hearts are shrouded (2 Cor 3:15; 4:3-6) O God, take this shroud away. You will not think clearly about your life until you think mythically. Until you see with the eyes of your heart.” (Page 34)
??? – Do you agree or disagree with Eldridge’s assessment that it is the “Age of Reason” which has taken away the “eyes of our hearts”? Why?