Continuing the writings of C. S. Lewis from his book ‘Mere Christianity:’
The difference between a Christian and a worldly man is not that the worldly man has only affections or “likings” and the Christian has only “charity.” The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he “likes” them: the Christian, trying to treat every one, finds himself liking more and more people as he goes on—including people he could not even have imagined himself liking at the beginning.
This same spiritual law works terribly in the opposite direction. The Germans, perhaps, at first ill-treated the Jews because they hated them: afterwards they hated them much more because they had ill-treated them. The more cruel you are, the more you will hate, and the more you hate, the more cruel you will become—and so on in a vicious circle forever.
Good and Evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you make and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act of today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparent trivial indulgence in lust of anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.
Some writers use the word charity to describe not only Christian love between human beings, but also God’s love for man and man’s love for God. About the second of these two, people are often worried. They are told they ought to love God. They cannot find any such feelings in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, “If I were sure that Ioved God, what would I do? When you have found the answer, go and do it.
On the whole, God’s love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him. Nobody can always have devout feelings: and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. Christian love either towards God or towards man is an affair of will. If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” He will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right. But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is in not wearied by our sins, or our indifference: and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to Him.
