The Presence of God by C.S. Lewis

Today's Reading

When any man comes into the presence of God he will find, whether he wishes it or not, that all those things which seemed to make him so different from all the men of other times, or even from his earlier self, have fallen off him. He is back where he always was, where every man always is…No possible complexity which we can give to our picture of the universe can hide us from God: there is no copse, no forest, no jungle thick enough to provide cover…In the twinkling of an eye, in a time too small to be measured, and in any place, all that seems to divide us from God can flee away, vanish, leaving us naked before Him, like the first man, like the only man, as if nothing but He and I existed. And since the contact cannot be avoided for long and since it means either bliss or horror, the business of life is to learn to like it. That is the first and greatest commandment. From God in the Dock Compiled in The Business of Heaven God in the Dock. Copyright © 1970 by The Trustees of the Estate of C. S. Lewis. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. The Business of Heaven. Editing of this collection and preface by Walter Hooper. Copyright © 1984 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.