Heavenly Minded and of Earthly Good

Over the years, a number of people have told me, “We shouldn’t think about Heaven. We should just think about Jesus.”

This viewpoint sounds spiritual, doesn’t it? But it is based on wrong assumptions, and it is clearly contradicted by Scripture.

Signposts of the New Earth

I’ve never been to Heaven, yet I miss it. Eden’s in my blood. The best things of life are souvenirs from Eden, appetizers of the New Earth. There are just enough of them to keep us going but never enough to make us satisfied with the world as it is or ourselves as we are.

Longing for Joy in C. S. Lewis, Part 2

In Part 1 of Lewis and Longing, a few blogs ago, I quoted from his great sermon, later published as an essay, “The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses.” There’s more in that essay I want to share.

(And no, this isn't a blog on smoking, it's a blog from the writings of Lewis. I just like this picture. When we visited the Kilns, Lewis's home outside Oxford, they told us that the front room curtains and all the furniture were smoke saturated, because Jack Lewis and his brother Warnie would close the doors and windows ...

Longing for Joy, in C. S. Lewis, Part 1

No writer has had greater impact on me than C. S. Lewis. I find both his fiction and nonfiction to be penetrating and life-shaping.

And when it comes to the subject of the longings of our heart, no one said it better than Lewis. He writes in Mere Christianity, 

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I ...