“Is he a man?” asked Lucy.
“Aslan a man!” said Mr Beaver sternly. Certainly not. I tell you he is King of the wood and the son of the great emperor-beyond- the-sea. Don’t you know who is the King of the Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the great lion.”
“ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake” said Mrs Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
(The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis)
TLTW&TW is a book I love, and in a book I love, this passage has to be one of my absolute favourite passages. It says so much about the character of God, in such a short passage...
i find this view of God, not exactly safe, but completely, totally, unimaginably good, to be really useful, particularly immediately after Christmas. Christmas is about the wonder, the mystery, the marvel of God appearing as a vulnerable human baby. But the danger of that view is that we lose sight of the majesty and power of the Almighty God - we limit him to the baby, or to the wandering preacher, and forget that he is King.
The other thing it does for me is to remind me that doing his will is not about the comfortable and cozy, its not about doing the things that keep us safe, its not about maintaining the status quo. Following him is edgy, even dangerous - alhough we may not immediately recognise the danger.
Through it all though, we can be certain that his purposes are good, because God is incapable of being anything other than Good. We may not understand at the time, we may never understand (at least not while we are here) but we can trust him and his purposes always.
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