The Cost of Discipleship

"The ordinary idea which we all have before we become Christians is this. We take as a starting point our ordinary self with its various desires and interests. We then admit that something else...call it "morality" or "decent behavior" or "the good of society"...has claims on this self; claims which interfere with its own desires...We are hoping all the time that when all the demands have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, and some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes. In fact, we are very like an honest man paying his taxes. He pays them all right, but he does hope that there will be enough left over for him to live on. Because we are still taking our natural self as the starting point...Make no mistake: if you are really going to try to meet all the demands made on the natural self, it will not have enough to live on. The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you. And your natural self, which is thus being starved and hammered and worried at every turn, will get angrier and angrier..." -C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Thank you C.S. Lewis for wrecking me with the Truth stick this morning...