Lewis has this great moment in “The Weight of Glory” when this sense of longing for eternity really finds its way through the dark paths of my heart. He asks whether we are on the wrong side of God’s door because we can see the beauty and freshness of creation but we don’t participate in it, at least not fully.

“If we take the imagery of Scripture seriously,” Lewis says, “if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy.”

How long, oh Lord? How long until we get pulled into such an array of worship? Lewis echoes what Augustine and others have expanded on from Paul’s statement about, “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth” (Romans 8:22). In other words, Lewis says, “we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door.” We are on the wrong side because of Eden being shuttered and the fall settling and depressing everything from the mountains into the valleys.

But our longing will be outmatched by God’s plan. There will be a time when the weight of glory shatters the pull of gravity, and, “all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that… we shall get in.”

I love what Lewis says about that day. He says that when we put on this, “greater glory,” we will know fully that the nature we’re now living through “is only the first sketch.”

Scripture makes it clear: “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure” (I John 3:2-3). 

I pray that each of us will use this Lenten time to get ready, our life as an offering to God, which is our reasonable service (Romans 12:1).