Another Practical Guide to the Logic, Philosophy, and Thoughts of Christianity

Section 1 - Article 26

When Lucy awoke, she tried to find Aslan where she saw him in her dream. Through her innocent attempt at searching for a dream, the rest of the group found the Narnian army. Was this a coincidence? No, it was Aslan mediated (perhaps Director-mediated portrayal would be more accurate).

Nothing in our lives happens by chance. God has a hand in it all. We are the characters, and He is the author and director. We are the clay, and He is the potter.

Later in the story, the Narnians were trapped in their hideout. The kings and queens were debating whether to attack or build up their defenses in the hideout. In their minds, it was to either die fighting or die defending. As Lucy rightly pointed out, the person who actually defeated the previous enemy (the white witch), was Aslan. Aslan had his way and plans. Yet in response to this, Peter's response was that he had enough of waiting for Aslan. So he went to war, and lost half the army.

How many times have Christians proceeded on without consultation from God? How many times have we run on ahead on our own will and thoughts? How many times have we not waited, ran off our own only to find that we should have listened and waited? But the lesson is usually learned only after going through unnecessary difficult times. We all need to learn to develop our trust and patience onto the Lord. On our own, we can win no battle, and certainly no war.

When at the final battle, the Narnians had basically no hope. In their hopelessness, they went for the only hope to send Lucy to seek a myth because they were at their limit. Some Narnians thought the faith was misplaced, for it was pointless to look for a Lion in the forest when they should be fighting the war, or at least die trying.

Is this not also the very same mistakes that we keep committing? We know mankind had no hope from destruction (environmental problems, resource problems and so on), and yet we continue to make things worse as we try to fix them. Anything that we try to fix, we end up messing it up further, resulting in wars, bigger problems, and natural disasters. We fix pests with pesticides which we now know cause cancer. Then we try to fix cancer with drugs that also destroy the body. Following that, we try to fix the body, but then in the process, we find out that we also need to fix the mind and so on. In our pointless attempts, do we not realize that the ultimate solution was God? Even though it may look stupid to everyone else (kneeling and prayer in public places for meals look stupid, praying for the train to come on time looks stupid, praying looks stupid), it is the right thing to do! People can laugh at our stupid hope, yes it may be stupid, but it is real and very true to life!

In the search for hope, Aslan later appeared at the nick of time to save Lucy. Aslan was a loving but fearsome foe to the enemies of his elect. Reunited, Lucy asked him if all the lives would have been lost if they had gone to him for help earlier. He answered in a wise way that they will never know what would happen. In fact he asked why Lucy did not believe to look him up earlier. Lucy replied that she believed, but she did not act because the others did not believe. Wisely, Aslan asked her why the disbelief of other stopped her as he is always happy to help.

In reality, a lot of problems would have been avoided if we knew to turn to God earlier. Our lives are all in God's hands, and He does allow us to go through difficult times in order that we may learn what He wants us to learn. Hopefully, we learn them fast and good enough to not repeat the mistakes. We need to go to God for every little problem, and we need to seek His direction for our lives constantly. Similarly, we cannot let the doubts of other people prevent us from going to God. We cannot let the disbelief of family and friends to hold us back when it comes to matters of God. We have to act on our belief of the Lord God, for no one is accountable for us, but us.

In one of the scenes, Peter and Caspian not only failed to look for Aslan, but almost yielded to bring the greater evil of the white witch back. Narnians, who lost the faith of Aslan, resorted to looking for the white witch, who would no doubt double-cross them.

How many times have we not only not asked God for help, but ask the wrong source for help, further aggravating our problems? In our fears, in our forgetfulness to ask the Lord Almighty for direction and help, we turn to wrong and bad ideas to solve our problems, and some, even to illegal means. Surely, we need to turn to the Creator of the Universe first for every problem that we meet.

As the movie comes to a close, the mouse asks Aslan to restore unto him his tail. At this, Aslan spoke clearly that it should not be done for pride, honor, dignity, but for the love of his fellow people.

Like the mouse, we have failed this part once too often. We have lost touch of what God wanted us to do, being caught up with meritocracy, capitalism, socialism, and other ideologies. We all have a lack of love for one another, and this is sad in the eyes of God. We justify our wrong with so many reasons, even sometimes resorting to the bible to justify our misdeeds. Furthermore, we seek to crush those who antagonize us with persecution and with the law. We do all these things because we lack love for one another, and as Jesus commanded, we need to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves.

In one very interesting scene, Aslan wanted to see the unbelieving dwarf who doubted Aslan's existence. Standing before the dwarf, he roared before the dwarf to signify that he is very real. He did this because Lucy told Aslan of the dwarf's disbelief.

We need to tell the Lord about the people that we care about who do not believe in Him. And if is in His will, our Lord will "roar" Himself into their lives. The great commission was given to us, and we have the duty to call others to the Lord's attention.

Later, when the Tumerians were given the option to stay or return to the human world, the first few to speak and choose were told that because they had chosen first, their future would be good.

Those that choose the Lord now are blessed. Those that wait till He comes again to confess may not be as glad. Again, this runs with the theme of going to Aslan early. Yet, it is better late than never. Choosing to go to the Lord first is a privilege. It is a blessed opportunity. It prevents us from making stupid mistakes, and there is great reward in that. The reward is not only in the world now, but also in the world to be. "Blessed are those that have not seen, and yet believed." Though it may seem that because of the choice, we miss out on "fun" things, we must bear in mind that God's reward is so much bigger compared to those little pleasures that arise from vices. We should not wait for validation, for faith is important. And we have already known from the gospel on the reality of Christ. Do we need validation for Him to appear to each and every one of us? Do we wait for Him to appear in the sky? By then, I fear, confession is different from faith, trust and love. And it might be too late.

Truly, much can be learnt from Christian themed movies for our growth of wisdom so that we may not need to commit the mistakes ourselves in order to learn.