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IS CHRISTIANITY HARD OR EASY?

In the previous Chapter ere considering the Christian idea of &039;putting on Christ,&039; or first &039;dressing up&039; as a son of God in order that you may finally become a real son What I want tomany jobs a Christian has to do; and it is not a sort of special exercise for the top class It is the whole of Christianity Christianity offers nothing else at all And I should like to point out how it differs froood&039;

The ordinary idea which we all have before we beco point our ordinary self with its various desires and interests We then ad else - call it `ood of society&039;- has claims on this self: claims which interfere with its own desires What wein to those clais the ordinary self wanted to do turn out to be e call &039;wrong&039;: well, we s, which the self did not want to do, turn out to be e call &039;right&039;: well, we shall have to do the all the time that when all the demands have been met, the poor natural self will still have soet on with its own desires What wein to those clais the ordinary self wanted to do turn out to be e call `wrong&039;; well, we s, which the self did not want to do, turn out to be e call &039;right&039;: well, we shall have to do the all the time that when all the demands have been met, the poor natural self will still have soet on with its own life and do what it likes In fact, we are very like an honest ht, but he does hope that there will be enough left over for hi our natural self as the starting point

As long as we are thinking that way, one or other of two results is likely to follow Either we give up trying to be good, or else we become very unhappy indeed For,to try to meet all the deh left over to live on The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will de starved and harier In the end, you will either give up trying to be good, or else become one of those people who, as they say, &039;live for others&039; but always in a discontented, gru why the others do not notice ita martyr of yourself And once you have becoreater pest to anyone who has to live with you than you would have been if you had remained frankly selfish

The Christian way is different: harder, and easier Christ says `Give me All I don&039;t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it No half-ood I don&039;t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down I don&039;t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked - the whole outfit I will give you a new self instead In fact, I will give you Myself: my oill shall become yours&039;

Both harder and easier than e are all trying to do You have noticed, I expect, that Christ Himself sometimes describes the Christian way as very hard, sometimes as very easy He says, &039;Take up your Cross&039;- in other words, it is like going to be beaten to death in a concentration camp Next ht&039; He means both And one can just see why both are true

Teachers will tell you that the laziest boy in the class is the one orks hardest in the end They eometry to do, the one who is prepared to take trouble will try to understand it The lazy boy will try to learn it by heart because, for the moment, that needs less effort But sixfor an exaery over things the other boy understands, and positively enjoys, in a fewrun Or look at it this way In a battle, or inwhich it takes a lot of pluck to do; but it is also, in the long run, the safest things to do If you funk it, you will find yourself, hours later, in far worse danger The cowardly thing is also the

It is like that here The terrible thing, the al, is to hand over your whole self - all your wishes and precautions - to Christ But it is far easier than e are all trying to do instead For e are trying to do is to remain e call &039;ourselves,&039; to keep personal happiness as our great aiood&039; We are all trying to let our o their oay-centred on , in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do As He said, a thistle cannot produce figs If I arass-seed, I cannot produce wheat Cutting the grass rass and no wheat If I want to produce wheat, the change hed up and re-sown

That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it It co All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild ani consists si to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life co back fro in out of the wind

We can only do it for moments at first But froh our systeht part of us It is the difference between paint, which is ht through He never talked vague, idealistic gas When he said, `Be perfect,&039; He o in for the full treatment It is hard; but the sort of co after is harder - in fact, it is i to turn into a bird : it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while reo on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg We o bad

May I come back to what I said before? This is the whole of Christianity There is nothing else It is so easy to get muddled about that It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects education, building,services Just as it is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects - military, political, econos are much simpler than that The State exists simply to pros in this life A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a ga a book in his own rooarden - that is what the State is there for And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc, are simply a waste of ti else but to draw men into Christ, tothat, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time God became Man for no other purpose It is even doubtful, you knohether the whole universe was created for any other purpose It says in the Bible that the whole universe was ether in Him I do not suppose any of us can understand how this will happen as regards the whole universe We do not knohat (if anything) lives in the parts of it that are millions of miles away from this Earth Even on this Earth we do not kno it applies to things other than men After all, that is what you would expect We have been shown the plan only in so far as it concerns ourselves

I soht apply to other things I think I can see how the higher animals are in a sense drawn into Man when he loves them and makes them (as he does) much more nearly human than they would otherwise be I can even see a sense in which the dead things and plants are drawn into Man as he studies theent creatures in other worlds they ht be that when intelligent creatures entered into Christ they would, in that way, bring all the other things in along with theuess

What we have been told is hoe men can be drawn into Christ - can beco Prince of the universe wants to offer to His Father - that present which is Hi erehints in the Bible that e I are drawn in, a great ht The bad drea