Glory

For Calculus II, Lunsford offered us an opportunity for extra credit by reading and writing a short essay on "The Weight of Glory" by C. S. Lewis. I'm not sure why I even did it, because I believe at this point it may be irrelevant. However, I did it anyway, because it wasn't like I had too much to do.

"The Weight of Glory" is a sermon done by Lewis in Oxford about the true meaning of glory. I won't go through all of it (I'm strongly suggesting you read it for yourself), but the gist of it is human life is infinitely valuable. He says that we are sitting on the fence between unimaginable glory through being recognized by God and eternal damnation in which God forgets us.

God forgetting? Is that even possible?

Think about the weight of that. God recognizing us, alone, is incredible. You've heard from the Bible that when we come to the gates of Heaven we will either hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant," or "I never knew you. Depart from Me." How...scary is that? We are standing on the brink of both possibilities. How important is it, then, that we help each other along? Lewis suggests that we should worry more about helping others achieve their glory than struggling to find our own. We should take each other seriously in all that we do, recognizing the worth of each person, that each and every one of us is on the same fence - without exception. We must respect that in one another.

The people that are important to you, the people you can't live without: Do you not want to remember them? More than that, do you not want God to remember them? I don't believe we understand the overwhelming weight of what this means! Imagine yourself forever erased from everyone's memory, like you were never there. Ignored and left to pity your own fate. You would have memories of a life, but what does that mean? What are memories, ultimately, when you've no one to share them with? And to be rejected by the very God who created you, who had a plan for your life that you neglected, who unconditionally loved you when you did nothing but rebel against Him because of your own pride; what are you then? You're not even a faint glimmer of a memory. You are nothing.

But being acknowledged by God! How we long each day for someone to look at us and say, "You know what, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're alive." How incredibly uplifting that is! And how many times do we say it? We long to be recognized. We desire to be thought of as worth someone's time. It is so despairing to wonder if you are truly wanted, if anybody even sees you - really, truly sees you. If we so deeply care about what people think about us, how much more should we care about how God sees us. The epitome of rectification through acknowledgment lies in God. We do things for God's glory, but it is also adding to our own. That is not to say that some will have more glory than others; such is not the case. We are only truly glorified through God.

I feel as though I go from day to day seeking validation. I wait for someone to notice me, to want me around, to know who I am and to love me all the same. And I'm sure you do the same. Everyone waits for the words, "I'm glad you're here." It is then that we find life worth living. It is then that we long to turn our attention to others, because it is then that we feel we have something to offer.