The Coin vs the Reality

The Apologist’s Evening Prayer

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.

-C.S. Lewis

There is a great danger in confusing belief with thought, revelation with interpretation, God with idea. For not only is that a danger of becoming a path to ruin, an irsinn, a will-o’-whisp, it is also a snare for new believers. Once the thought, interpretation, or idea is shown to be wrong if there is no connection or relationship to the God that error claimed to illuminate, God Himself may be rejected. Christian Nationalism is an evil lie that must be exposed, but if the only connection someone had to God was that lie, will they lose their connection completely? Or how many people open to God and pursuing Him, cease to believe when exposed to such a lie about Him?

Guard against thoughts, interpretations, and ideas about God that do not conform to Him. Most of all, though, guard against loving God as a subject and not a real and living Lord.