C.S. Lewis: The Question Nobody Wants to Answer Honestly

C.S. Lewis was one of the most committed atheists in Britain, a brilliant Oxford scholar certain that Christianity was a myth for weaker minds. He resisted God for years with everything in him. Then he ended up on his knees, and went on to become the most beloved defender of the faith in a century.

The Atheist Who Felt Someone Approaching

Lewis taught English literature at Oxford and was sure there was no God. But the evidence for the Gospels kept refusing to crumble, and his Christian friends, including J.R.R. Tolkien, kept pressing him. Night after night in his rooms he felt Someone approaching, Someone he did not want to meet. In 1929 he finally gave in and knelt to pray, admitting later that no one in England had ever come to God more reluctantly than he did.

The Ride to the Zoo

Believing in God was not yet bowing to Christ. That came in 1931. Lewis climbed into his brother’s motorcycle sidecar for a trip to the zoo. He said that when they set out he did not believe Jesus was the Son of God, and by the time they arrived, he did. No lightning, no sermon, just a man who finally stopped running.

But Who Do You Say That I Am?

Lewis had tried to file Jesus away as a great moral teacher, until he saw that Jesus never left that door open. A man who says what Jesus said is either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. That points us to the most personal question Jesus ever asked, in Matthew 16:15: “But who do you say that I am?”

It is the question nobody wants to answer honestly, because an honest answer changes everything. The smartest skeptic in the room answered it on his knees. How will you answer it? And that, friend, is how God lifts up your day.

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