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There are three major volumes of C.S. Lewis’ letters now available. Virtually every surviving letter from Lewis is now contained in these three massive books.

If you are like me, you wonder how to sort through so many letters in order to find the advice from Lewis that has spiritual value. There’s no reason to wonder anymore. Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C.S. Lewis is a collection of the best of Lewis’ letters from all three collections. In this volume, one finds the letters containing “spiritual direction” from Lewis.

I thoroughly enjoyed Yours, Jack. The editors did a good job of selecting which letters to include in this collection. And they helpfully include a summary of each and an index that makes the letters more accessible to readers looking up a certain topic.

There are some gems here. Let me give you a few worthwhile quotes:

“The trouble about God is that he is like a person who never acknowledge’s one’s letters and so, in time, one comes to the conclusion either that he does not exist or that you have got the address wrong.” (1921)

“One needs the sweetness to start one on the spiritual life but, once started, one must learn to obey God for his own sake, not for the pleasure.” (1931)

“(Sensual love) ceases to be a devil when it ceases to be a god. So many things – nay every real thing – is good if only it will be humble and ordinate.” (1940)

“I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations. It is not serious provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience et cetera doesn’t get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the very sign of his presence.” (1942)

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’, or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life – the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination.” (1943)

“The doctrine of Christ’s divinity seems to me not something stuck on which you can unstick but something that peeps out at every point so that you’d have to unravel the whole web to get rid of it.” (1944)

“When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.” (1952)

“You ask ‘for what’ God wants you. Isn’t the primary answer that he wants you?” (1954)

“The wrath of God: ‘something in God of which the best image in the created world is righteous indignation.’  I think it quite a mistake to try to soften the idea of anger by substituting something like disapproval or regret. Even with men real anger is far more likely than cold disapproval to lead to full reconciliation. Hot love, hot wrath….” (1963)

These are just a few of my favorite quotes from C.S. Lewis’ letters. Yours, Jack offers an inside look into Lewis’ correspondence. Readers will benefit from the counsel found in these pages.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2009 Kingdom People blog

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