Believing There's Always More

About 15 years ago I ran across a story by George MacDonald that I’d never read before. It’s called, The Day Boy and the Night Girl. [Very, very slight spoiler alert for anyone who’s planning to read this 1882 Scottish Fairytale!] In the story, a girl named Nycteris is raised in almost complete darkness by an evil witch. Of course. Because who else would think of doing something like that? But later in the story she finds her way out into the open where she sees the sky for the first time and feels the grass beneath her feet. The moon is shockingly brilliant compared to her low-lit alabaster lamp—the only light Nycteris has ever known. The sky is frighteningly vast compared to the ceiling of the tomb in which she has been living.

It’s easy to accidentally live and think small. Don’t you agree?  To fall into believing that the circumstances surrounding you and me, wether they’re good or bad, are the complete picture.  But they’re really not. They’re terribly incomplete—like Nycteris’s little crypt which had been her whole world before she found out about flowers and fireflies, mountains, moon, sun and stars. And all those lovely things, as beautiful as they are, are still “indoors” compared to the loveliness of God Himself. I feel sure C.S. Lewis wrote about this idea somewhere but I can’t recall where…Maybe in Mere Christianity?

I love the part in John 18 where Jesus is answering Pilate’s questions and He says,   “My Kingdom is not of this realm.” Such an unexpected thing for someone to say! And when I consider His words, I remember that my vision and understanding are small. Incomplete. There’s always more to the story than what I can see from where I’m standing. When you and I pray, we’re praying to the one who can see everything. And in lifting our hearts to Him, our world gets so much bigger. We find ourselves out in the open again—out of the tomb—marveling at the sky. A place of possibilities. 

~Amy