Letters from Lewis: Q/A (4)

Question (4): 'How do I become more 'like Christ'? In other words, what do I do in order to change?'

C.S. - "It is not mere improvement but Transformation...as long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about yourself altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange?

Give up yourself,

and you will find your real self.

Lose your life and you will save it.

Submit to death, death of your ambitions

and favorite wishes every day and

death of your whole body in the end:

submit with every fiber of your being,

and you will find eternal life.

Keep back nothing.

Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours.

Nothing in you

that has not died

will ever be raised from the dead.

Look for yourself, and you will find only

hatred,

loneliness,

despair,

rage,

ruin,

and decay.

But look for Christ and you will find Him,

and with Him everything else thrown in."