"The Weight of Your Glory"

I wanted to share an excerpt from one of my favorite books, Waking the Dead by one of my favorite authors, John Eldredge. I have always believed in the unseen and that we find ourselves, as Eldredge describes, cast into the middle of a war in a world that is not what it seems. There is a physical nature to the world we live in and a metaphysical nature to it. A nature that transcends, goes beyond, and follows everything we can sense. That is to say a world of two parts: one we can see and one we can't see. He describes it perfectly.

First, take a look at Daniel 10:1-3. Here's the stage...

Daniel has been given a vision of a great war - a vision he can't comprehend. He fasts and prays for three weeks to try and come to grips with it. Then, on the banks of the Tigris River on the 24th day an angel appears, out of breath and with a sort of apology for Daniel. He says that God heard his prayer and has found favor with him. The angel goes on to say that he tried coming sooner but he was detained by the "Prince of Persia" - a demon who rules over and influences that particular part of the world. This evil prince of Persia was so strong, in fact, that the angel called in reinforcements. He called Michael the Arcangel!!

Now, pay close attention.

Like Daniel...

[from Waking the Dead] "We live in a far more dangerous story than we ever imagined. The reason we love Chronicles of Narnia of Star Wars or The Matrix or The Lord of the Rings is that they are telling us something about our lives that we never, ever get on the evening news. Or from the pulpits. This is our most desperate hour. Without this burning in our hearts, we lose the meaning of our days. It all withers down to last food and bills and [text messages] and who really cares anyway? Do you see what has happened? The essence of our faith has been stripped away. The very thing that was to give our lives meaning and protect us—this way of seeing—has been lost. Or stolen from us. Notice that those who tried to wake us up to this reality were killed for it: the prophets, Jesus, Stephen, Paul, and most of the disciples, in fact. has it ever occurred to you that someone is trying to shut them up? Things are not what they seem. This world is at war. Now for the most stunning news of all...

...Every mythic story shouts to us that in this desperate hour we have a crucial role to play...For most of his life, Neo sees himself as Thomas Anderson, a computer programmer for a large software corporation. As the drama really begins to heat up and the enemy hunts him down, he says to himself, "This is insane. Why is this happening to me? What did I do? I'm nobody. I didn't do anything." A very dangerous conviction...though one shared by most of you. What he comes to realize—and not a moment too soon—is that he is "the ONE" who will break the power of the Matrix.

"Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments well as for inducing them. And you and I have a need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us up from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years. ~C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Frodo, the little halfling from the shire, young and naive in so many ways, "the most unlikely person imaginable," is the Ring Bearer. He, too, must learn through dangerous paths and fierce battles that a task has been appointed to him, and if he does not find a way, no one will. Dorothy is just a farm girl from Kansas, who stumbled into Oz not because she was looking for adventure but because someone had hurt her feelings and she decided to run away from home. Yet she is the one who will bring down the Wicked Witch of the West. Joan of Arc was also a farm girl, illiterate, and the youngest in her family when she received her first vision from God. Just about everyone doubted her; the commander of the French army said she should be taken home and given a good whipping. Yet she ends up leading the armies to war.

You see this throughout scripture: a little boy will slay a giant, a loudmouthed fisherman who can't hold down a job will lead the church, and a whore with a golden heart is the one who will perform the deed that Jesus asked us all to tell "wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world" (Mark 14:9) Things are not what they seem. We are not what we seem[!!!]

Of all the eternal truths we don't believe, this is the one we doubt most of all. Our days are not extraordinary. They are filled with the mundane, with hassles mostly. And we? We are ....a dime a dozen. Nothing special really. Probably a disappointment to God. But [C.S.] Lewis wrote, "The value of ...myth is that it takes all of the things we know and restores them to the rich significance which has been hidden by the 'veil of familiarity.'"

...You are NOT what you think you are. There is glory to your life that your enemy fears, and he is hell-bent on destroying that glory before you act on it."

Excerpted from "Waking the Dead," Copyright ©2003 by John Eldredge

Shared by

Joel Butts, Director

Twelve3One Ministries