Did We Accidentally Choose Hell on Earth?

“There is no other day. All days are present now.”

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I once heard the best advice: Read older books.

This was a hard pill to swallow as a connoisseur of the latest and greatest reads. I’m a voracious reader, but something about cracking open books 30, 40, 50 + years old made me resist.

For 10 years, I’ve had a collection of C.S. Lewis books on my bookshelf, the only inheritance from my Grandma after she died. I was honored to get them and secretly loved that they were counted as one of her treasures.

Some families argue over money when a grandparent dies, but not ours. Grandma’s greatest treasures weren’t material—they were the legacy of her faithful life, the prayers she prayed, and the words she wrote on the thin pages of her Bibles and worn prayer journals

She must have bought them from a used bookstore decades ago—another woman's name is written on the first page, along with a stamp from a now-defunct shop called The Bookateria. Printed on the cover is a fee of $.95 cents, though I’m guessing she got it for a quarter or less.

It makes me happy to hold the book, knowing she held it too, and thinking about all the prayers she lifted for my life before her death.

So, back to the books.

I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as a child but stopped there. As Amazon book orders rose in number, the little C.S. Lewis books sat unread amid the growing piles.

Read older books. The advice kept on in my head.

Read the C.S. Lewis books. I heard it loud and clear.

Why was I resistant to picking up these 100-ish page books?

Because Lewis is associated with fantasy (hello Narnia!), I thought I might not like them. I was…wrong :)

More than a decade after my Grandma passed away, I finally cracked open one of her books. Reading the first, The Great Divorce, I’ve already gained so much wisdom.

Kill the Lizard

In the book, we meet characters who have died and are in a valley between heaven and hell. Many are “ghosts” visiting a valley, which appears to be just outside of heaven. These individuals are there for the day, deciding whether or not to enter heaven or return to Hell.

A man with an annoying lizard on his shoulder is in such a situation. An angel appears, asking the man if he’d like to kill the lizard because he can’t bring the animal into heaven with him.

**The man is adamant he’d rather leave than kill the lizard (stick with me, this is about to sound really familiar!)

The angel continues to ask if he can kill the lizard, seemingly desperate for him to understand that it is imperative if he plans to enter heaven.

The man has all manner of excuses:

• Can’t I just keep him quiet instead of killing him?

• I’ll keep him in order, I promise.

• I’d rather kill him gradually…that would be easier

• I’m not feeling well — now is not a good day to do it.

• It will kill me if you kill him; it’s already hurting me when the angel gets close.

• Oh, just kill him without me — I can’t watch

• The lizard protests: If you kill me, I’ll be gone forever & you’ll never get me back

Upon first reading, I was like, "Kill the lizard?" That seems drastic and sad. I soon realized it illustrated the vices we all insist on holding onto.

We make these same protestations. I’ll use alcohol as my example:

…Can’t I just keep alcohol in my life in some way?

…I’ll moderate and make rules, so it’s all controlled.

…I’d rather just naturally see if the drinking compulsion goes away.

…Life is too stressful — I can’t quit now.

…But it will kill my spirit if I quit — it’s too much a part of my life.

…God, can’t you just take it away from me? I can’t watch!

…Alcohol tells me: You’ll never have me again, life will be dull & terrible.

Let’s counter both the man’s excuses and my own with what C.S. Lewis wrote in response to these things.

Here’s what the angel had to say to the man:

• “The gradual process is of no use at all.” 🔥

• “There is no other day. All days are present now.” 🔥

• “I never said it wouldn’t hurt you. I said it wouldn’t kill you.” 🔥🔥

• “This moment contains all moments.” 🔥

• “I cannot kill it against your will.” 🔥

• “It would be better to be dead than live with this creature.” 🔥🔥

The man finally allows the angel to kill the lizard. It’s agonizing and awful to watch for a few moments.

Then, the unexpected: A dead and shriveled lizard transforms into “the greatest stallion I have ever seen.”

Instead of turning back, as the man had planned to do with the lizard, he mounts the horse, and the two ride up the glorious mountain “into the rose-brightness of that everlasting morning.”

To think, he was willing to forfeit the glory of heaven for the sake of that annoying, life-sucking lizard.

Annoying, life-sucking lizard really resonates here for me.

How many days did I bow down to it?
How many times did I protest that it was too hard?
How many times did I beg God to “take it from me” without me choosing to "die to” it first?

The eternal wisdom in these words can speak to us all, but especially these:

“I never said it wouldn’t hurt. I said it wouldn’t kill you.”

This is what we sometimes miss. To kill our sin is going to hurt. It’s a bit of a violent process, is it not?

The man in the story had to trust that the angel had something better even though he didn’t yet know what it was.

So it is with our own “annoying lizards.” And while we’re not yet “in heaven,” are we, perhaps, on the foothills?

We’re not dead yet, but we’re still choosing whether to move toward heaven or hell.

This is not to say that His grace doesn’t cover your sins. It simply illustrates what you’re missing because you’ve not permitted Him to kill the lizard.

One beauty of our humanity is our freedom to choose. He doesn’t make us choose Him, for that would be no choice at all.

Lewis also writes:

“…A drunkard reaches a point at which (for the moment), he actually believes that another glass will do him no harm. The beliefs are sincere in the sense that they do occur as psychological events in the man’s mind. If that’s what you mean by sincerity, they are sincere, and so were ours. But errors which are sincere in that sense are not innocent.”

There are serious psychological, biological and physical reasons some people can’t or won’t stop drinking. They are legit and should be pursued by every avenue.

Addiction, or dependence, isn’t a sin by itself. This, however, cannot be an excuse not to tackle the heart issue that belies it.

We are sincerely dependent. We must also be sincerely pursuant of “killing the lizard” by whatever means we can.

The most famous passage in The Great Divorce is when the main character asks about “the poor Ghosts” who never make it to heaven.

The angel replies:

“Everyone who wishes it does. Never fear. There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’

All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice, there would be no Hell.”

Must we quit drinking or overcome an addiction to enter heaven? No. There is “no condemnation within Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

Don’t mistake that freedom for the opportunity to continue in whatever “sin so easily entangles” (Hebrews 12:1) you, though.

At our small group this week, we talked about confession and repentance. In first world America, we don’t take our sin so seriously. We “keep it quiet,” “keep it in order,” hope it will “gradually” go away, and wait until we “feel better” to walk away from it.

But consider the potential consequences of this approach:

“But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” — James 1:14-15

Hear me: As a Christian, you are saved by grace. However, our wayward desires here on Earth can still produce sin and ultimately a “death” whether by mind, spirit or body.

Addiction isn’t the sin, but what are the sins you can “flee from” or actions you can take to move toward heaven?

In his book, Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright writes:

“Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven.”

Wright’s thought in that book is this: Once we have accepted Christ, heaven has already begun and we can begin living like it.

I’ve never met someone with more faith than my Grandma. She was “supposed” to die when I was around 7 after being diagnosed with serious cancer.

God blessed us with 25 more years of life with her, which is something I’m incredibly grateful for. Ultimately, cancer did take her when she was 72, but boy did she make an impact on this world.

L to R: Me, my sister and Grandma (2011)

She’s the only person who ever said a word to me about drinking too much, and this was long before I took steps to quit. She saw this transformation before anyone else did. She helped pray it into existence.

I hope that you, too, can find a bit of eternal hope, Truth and freedom in what you read today.

OTHER POSTS ON THIS TOPIC:

• We Need to Talk About Dry January

• Is Sobriety a Choice if We Don’t Have a Voice?

• How Being Sober Curious Led to 4 Years Alcohol-Free

• The Toxic Relationship Between Women & Alcohol

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High Profile Pieces on Women & Alcohol

1. New York Times

2. Wall Street Journal

3. Christianity Today

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