Your answer to this question defines your One Big Truth. Your One Big Truth is the truth you cling to when all is lost. It’s the backbone that helps you stand and the keel that keeps you on course. It’s the spark in your imagination, the drive in your engine, and the peace in your sleep.

Do you have a One Big Truth?

Perhaps you’ve never thought about this before. Then consider Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle. Puddleglum is one of my favorite characters from the Chronicles of Narnia. He is grim, gloomy, and famously pessimistic: “There’s one good thing about being trapped down here – it’ll save funeral expenses.” But he’s a good wiggle in a storm. If you’ve read The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis, you will know what I’m talking about.

Puddleglum’s conviction

Near the end of the story, Puddleglum and his friends Jill and Eustace find themselves trapped in the dark world of Underland. Using incense and lies, an evil enchantress tries to convince them that the world they’re looking for does not exist. Narnia is nothing but a make-believe world and Aslan a foolish dream. Jill and Eustace are bewitched but Puddleglum breaks the spell with a bold declaration:

Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up all those things… Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one… That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.

Puddleglum’s One Big Truth was that Aslan and Narnia were more real than the world he could see with his eyes. Acting on his conviction, Puddleglum refuted the witch’s lies, stomped on her fire, and saved the day.

As Puddleglum so brilliantly shows us, your One Big Truth is an undimmable light in a dark world. It’s an unbreakable bridge between where you are and where you are going. If Puddleglum had not been so sure of his One Big Truth, then all would’ve been lost. It is unlikely that he and his friends would have escaped the realm of Underland.

So what is your One Big Truth? What is your central belief? In my travels I have encountered several beliefs that people have adopted as their Big Truths. Here are four:

-    obedience – the most important thing is to obey God no matter what; He demands it
-    attitude – the most important thing is to make a good effort; God knows our hearts
-    sacrifice – the most important thing is give God our best; He has already given us so much
-    fruit – the most important thing is to bear much fruit proving ourselves to be His disciples

I suppose these are fine but they are not my One Big Truth. The difficulty I have with these is that all of them rely on me – my obedience, my attitude, my sacrifice, and my fruit-bearing – and I just don’t have that much faith in me. Like Puddleglum, my faith is in another. My backbone comes from Someone else.

What do you want to pass on to your kids?

Lately I’ve been asking myself, what is the one supreme lesson that I want my kids to learn from me? In other words, what is my One Big Truth? I’ll give you my answer in a minute but before I do, why don’t you pause and ask yourself that question. What is the single greatest insight that you would impart to those who come after you?

Have you got something?

Okay, here’s my One Big Truth: God loves us with an unfailing love. This is simply mind-blowing to me. Every form of love that you and I will experience in this world is failing love – it breaks, it wounds, it disappoints, and eventually it dies. I don’t mean to sound jaded – I’m not – but human love is inherently brittle. We were not designed to live off it.

But God’s love never, ever fails. Not ever! What does that mean? Jeremiah said His is an everlasting love (Jer 31:3). It doesn’t wear out or die. Paul said His love surpasses knowing (Eph 3:19). Your mind simply cannot grasp the extravagant magnitude of His love for you. Paul also said His love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. This is the honest-to-God truth. God doesn’t love you with human love. He loves you with an unconditional and unfailing love (1 Cor 13:7). I guarantee you that you’ve never seen its like anywhere else!

God will never make you jump through hoops to earn His love. He won’t love you any more if you succeed and He won’t love you any less if you fail. If you lead millions to Christ or none at all He’ll love you just the same. He loved you into existence and He loved you while you were dead in sin (Rm 5:8). His love for you is unaffected by your obedience, your attitude, your sacrifices and your fruit. He loves you because He is love. But as awesome as God’s love is, it will have no effect on you unless you know it. It is knowing and being convinced about the truth that sets you free.

Knowing the Father’s love

Think of the Prodigal Son. His father loved him the same at the beginning of the story as at the end. His love was without shadow or qualification. But the Prodigal didn’t know his father’s love until he was embraced. I am sure the father wanted to hug his son every day but the son wasn’t interested. In fact, the son wished his father was dead so he could get his hands on the old man’s money. Later he returned home because he thought he could earn favor by serving. Happily, he learned that the Father’s love is not for sale.

It was the same with the older brother. He didn’t know his father’s love. His one big truth was based on his obedience: “All these years I have been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders.” If the younger brother was a rebel, then the older brother was a religious man. The father loved both of his sons but neither knew it.

Jesus once said to the Pharisees, “I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts” (Joh 5:42). Those who preach religious duty and obligation are unacquainted with the unfailing love of God. This is why they portray His love as brittle and conditional – they’re preaching what they know. If you listen to the lies of religion, then you will never know the unfailing and unconditional love of God. Religion cannot give you what religion does not have.

I hope that my kids turn out to be nothing like the Prodigal and his brother. But if they were to stray and end up in the pig pen, or worse, a works-based church(!), the one thing I hope they would remember above all else is that God loves them with an unfailing love. Religion would tell them that God is standing with crossed arms, but Grace declares His arms are always open. Religion says God is angry and maybe hates you, but Grace proclaims He is always in a good mood and His favor is on you. Religion says you need to get yourself sorted out and cleaned up before you can come home, but Grace shouts, “Come as you are!”

I can’t prepare my children for every possible lie and snare that this world might throw at them. Who knows what evil enchantress lies waiting around the corner? But if they know the unfailing love of their heavenly Father – if they know that Almighty God is for them – it won’t matter who comes against them.
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Related posts:
- Is God’s love unconditional?
- Grace and love in the Chronicles of Narnia
- Forsaking your first love: What was the Ephesians’ problem?

“Have you forgotten the Deep Magic?” asked the Witch.
“Let us say I have forgotten it,” answered Aslan gravely. “Tell us of this Deep Magic.”
“Tell you?” said the Witch, her voice growing suddenly shriller. “Tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us?… You at least know the Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill.”
“Oh,” said Mr Beaver. “So that’s how you came to imagine yourself a queen – because you were the Emperor’s hangman. I see.”
“Peace, Beaver,” said Aslan, with a very low growl.
“And so,” continued the Witch, “that human creature is mine. His life is forfeit to me. His blood is my property.”
“Come and take it then,” said the Bull with the man’s head in a great bellowing voice.
“Fool,” said the Witch with a savage smile that was almost a snarl, “do you really think your master can rob me of my rights by mere force? He knows the Deep Magic better than that. He knows that unless I have blood as the Law says all Narnia will be overturned and perish in fire and water.”
“It is very true,” said Aslan, “I do not deny it.” (pp.128-9)

In Narnia, the Deep Magic is a law of justice much like the old covenant law in the Bible. Just as the Biblical law was written on stone tablets, the Deep Magic was engraved on a Stone Table. Although both serve a just purpose, both are ultimately ministries of death (2 Cor 3:7). Knowing this, the Witch attempts to use the Deep Magic for her own nefarious purposes.

Like Satan in our world, the White Witch is a legalist who uses the Law to accuse and condemn men. She is a religious spirit whose desire is to control and rob people of freedom and joy. She entraps Narnians in stone and has the whole country under her wintry curse.

Now, because of Edmund’s sin, all of Narnia is in peril. The whole land is in danger of being destroyed “in fire and water.” Edmund is thus a type of First Adam:

“Sin came into the world through one man, and his sin brought death with it. As a result, death has spread to the whole human race because everyone has sinned.” (Rms 5:12, GNB)

The result of Adam’s sin and Edmund’s, was a death sentence for the entire world. And in both cases, propitiation, or satisfaction, demanded blood.

You know what happens next. Aslan gives his life up for Edmund satisfying the bloodthirsty demands of the Law. Edmund is spared and Narnia is saved. Happily, Aslan rises from the dead revealing a Deeper Magic:

“Oh, you’re real, you’re real! Oh Aslan!” cried Lucy, and both girls flung themselves upon him and covered him with kisses.
“But what does it all mean?” asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.
“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treason was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table and Death itself would start working backwards. And now – “
“Oh yes. Now?” said Lucy, jumping up and clapping her hands.
“Oh, children,” said the Lion, “I feel my strength coming back to me. Oh, children, catch me if you can!” (p.148)

Our lives were forfeit, but God loved us so much that He sent us His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 4:10). If the Deep Magic of Narnia represents the old covenant law which condemns, then the Deeper Magic represents the grace and goodness of God which redeems and sets men free. As you can probably guess, the Deeper Magic is better than the Deep Magic!

Grace trumps law. Just as Aslan’s sacrifice undid the Witch’s diabolical scheme, Jesus’ death and resurrection destroyed the devil’s work. This was not a contest of equals. Aslan was never in any danger of losing to the Witch. In what she thought was her moment of triumph, he was actually disarming and defeating her. The Stone Table – that vile place of execution – became a place of deliverance for the whole land. Future Narnians would come to revere the site as hallowed ground.

On the cross of Calvary, Jesus became the propitiation for the sins of the world (1 Jn 2:2). On the cross, the righteous demands of the law that stood against us were fully satisfied. If those demands had not been fully satisfied, Jesus would not have been raised from the dead.

“He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” (Rms 4:25)

When we see the risen Jesus we can rejoice knowing that our debt has been fully paid. His resurrection testifies to our justification. For the Christian who apprehends this truth, every day is Easter Sunday.

Peter did not feel very brave; indeed, he felt he was going to be sick. But that made no difference to what he had to do. He rushed up to the monster and aimed a slash of his sword at its side. That stroke never reached the Wolf. Quick as lightning it turned round, its eyes flaming, and its mouth wide open in a howl of anger. If it had not been so angry that it simply had to howl it would have got him by the throat at once. As it was – though all this happened too quickly for Peter to think at all – he had just time to duck down and plunge his sword, as hard as he could, between the brute’s forelegs into its heart. (p.120)

The day after he kills the wolf, Peter finds himself in hand to hand combat with the White Witch herself. In this second battle it is not Peter who is victorious.

What is interesting about these two battles is Aslan’s reaction to them. In the first, he tells the Narnians to stand back saying, “Let the prince win his spurs.” The wolf is for Peter to deal with alone.

Now you have to imagine that Aslan could’ve killed the wolf with no trouble at all. But this was a test for Peter. He had to “win his spurs.” Although Peter was afraid, I don’t believe he was in any real danger at all. Aslan would not have set him up for failure. Instead, Aslan wanted to release the warrior-heart of the future High King of Narnia. Aslan already knew that Peter was the right man for the job, but Peter didn’t. Hence the wolf-test. A shepherd-king needs to be able to handle wolves. This battle reminds us of David the future king fighting the lion and the bear.

But Aslan’s reaction to Peter’s second battle – the one with the Witch – was very different. After Aslan liberated the captives from the Witch’s house he raced to the battle with Lucy and Susan riding on his back. Here’s what they saw when they arrived:

She (the Witch) was fighting with her stone knife. It was Peter she was fighting – both of them going at it so hard that Lucy could hardly make out what was happening; she only saw the stone knife and Peter’s sword flashing so quickly that they looked like three knives and three swords. The pair were in the centre. On each side the line stretched out. Horrible things were happening wherever she looked.
“Off my back children,” shouted Aslan. And they both tumbled off. Then with a roar that shook all Narnia from the western lamp-post to the shores of the eastern sea the great beast flung himself upon the White Witch. Lucy saw her face lifted towards him for one second with an expression of terror and amazement. The Lion and the Witch had rolled over together but with the Witch underneath. (pp.160-1)

And in Lewis’s economical writing, that was the end of the White Witch!

In the first battle Aslan held back and let Peter fight. But in this second battle, Aslan does it all. He doesn’t stop to ask if Peter needs his help. He just comes with a mighty roar and destroys the Witch himself.

The Witch was Aslan’s enemy. It was she who held his creation in bondage and had put all of Narnia under a curse. And it was she who had delivered the killer stroke the previous night on the Stone Table. You get the sense that with Aslan and the Witch, that “this was personal.”

If Peter in the first battle reminds us of David the shepherd-boy, then Aslan in the second reminds us of Jesus the Deliverer. 1 John 3:8 tells us that the reason the Son of God came was to destroy the devil’s work. Jesus came to save us and defeat him. Colossians 3:15 tells us that Jesus disarmed and triumphed over his enemies at the cross.

Today is Good Friday. At Easter we celebrate Jesus’ death which bought our forgiveness and His resurrection which secured our justification. But that’s not all he did. At the first Easter Jesus also triumphed over the devil. We need not fear the enemy any longer. He has been disarmed and defeated. This was not a victory we won. Jesus did it all. We were under attack but the Lion of Judah took it personally.

Imagine what a talented movie-maker could do with this story!

Picture the scene. There’s Jesus, not looking at all dead, standing in power and splendor ready to tear down the gates of hell. Inside the devil is in shock. His throne is cracking and the ground beneath him is breaking open. The camera goes for a close-up of Jesus’ face. Beneath a determined brow is a set smile that says two words, “I’m back.”

Three days after the battle with the Witch, Aslan crowned Peter as High King of Narnia. More battles were to follow but Peter never had to worry about the White Witch ever again. CS Lewis writes that Peter and his royal siblings “lived in great joy” (p.167).

Similarly, we have been called us to “reign in life” through Jesus Christ (Rms 5:17). It’s like we have been crowned kings in his name. And we can reign because the enemy has already been defeated. Although there will be battles to fight and victories to win, we can live in great joy because of what Jesus did at the first Easter.

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This is pretty mind-blowing stuff when you’re a teenager who thinks anyone who doesn’t go to your particular kind of church is deceived and in danger of hell-fire!

But reading this again as a middle-aged man what struck me most was not Aslan’s inclusiveness, but the name he gave to Emeth. This also had a deep effect on the man himself, for he says:

“Then he breathed upon me and took away the trembling from my limbs and caused me to stand upon my feet. And after that, he said not much, but that we should meet again, and I must go further up and further in. Then he turned him about in a storm and flurry of gold and was gone suddenly.

“And since then, O Kings and Ladies, I have been wandering to find him and my happiness is so great it even weakens me like a wound. And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me Beloved, me who am but a dog – ” (p.155)

Do you know that God calls us Beloved too?

At the River Jordan the Voice from Heaven said of Jesus,

“This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17, KJV).

Ephesians 1:6 tells us that God has accepted us “in the Beloved” (KJV). This means that God relates to us in the same way that He relates to Jesus. He accepts us, is well pleased with us, and He calls us His beloved sons.

Joseph Prince writes about this in his book, Destined to Reign. He notes that in Matthew 3 God says of Jesus, “this is my beloved Son,” but in Matthew 4 the devil says, “If you are the Son of God…” The devil did not remind Jesus that He was the beloved Son of God and neither does he remind us. The devil doesn’t want us to know what God thinks of us because once you know you are beloved, says Prince, everything changes. We rise up against the enemy’s temptations and we stand secure in our God-given identity.

“Beloved, there is nothing you can do today to make God love you more, and there’s nothing you can do to make Him love you any less… Beloved, it’s not enough that you know that God loves everyone. You need to know and believe that He loves you, and let that revelation burn in your heart, especially when you fail.” (Destined to Reign, pp.300-1)

It is such an awesome privilege to be adopted as a son of God (Gal 3:26). But we are more than sons; we are His beloved sons.

Lewis was onto something here. He knew that when we apprehend the divine audacity of God calling us Beloved, our joy is so overwhelming that it weakens us like a wound. And knowing that we are His Beloved, it is the easiest thing to turn our backs on the world and set out to find Him and to be where He is.

Now lest you get the wrong impression, let me preface everything by saying I am a huge fan of CS Lewis. As far as I’m concerned The Chronicles of Narnia are the best children’s books ever written. The older I get the more I enjoy them. And I am well aware that they were not written as some sort of Christian analogy. Any fan can tell you how Lewis started writing and Aslan the Lion just showed up and took over. (If you want to know the back story, The Narnian by Alan Jacobs is the one of the best biographies of Lewis.)

That said, it is fair to treat the Narnia Chronicles as suppositions. Lewis certainly did when he said: “Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as He became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would have happened.” In our world, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. But what about Narnia? What does Aslan model of the grace and goodness of the “Emperor-over-the-Sea”?

Well obviously Aslan died for the sins of Edmund and that was really something. He also set the witch’s captives free and broke the curse of endless winter. Everything he says is wise and full of grace.

Or is it?

Look at the snippet below which comes from ch. 14 of The Horse and His Boy. If you haven’t read the story – and it’s brilliant – Aravis is running away from the cruel land of Calormen. She was being forced into marriage and to make good her escape she drugged her stepmother’s maid. Later in the story she is chased by a lion who claws her shoulder. Aravis escapes but is wounded. Later she meets Aslan who says:

“It was I who wounded you… Do you know why I tore you?”
“No, sir.”

“The scratches on your back, tear for tear, throb for throb, blood for blood, were equal to the stripes laid on the back of your stepmother’s slave because of the drugged sleep you cast upon her. You need to know what it felt like.”

“Yes, sir. Please – ”

“Ask on, dear,” said Aslan.

“Will any more harm come to her by what I did?”

“Child,” said the Lion, “I am telling you your story, not hers. No one is told any story but their own.”

When I read this as a younger man, Aslan’s wounding of Aravis struck me as fatherly discipline. Afterall, Aravis needed to learn the consequences of her actions. But in reality Aslan’s clawing is punishment applied in the merciless Mosaic sense of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (Deut 19:21). Aslan says as much and I’m stunned. I’m as shocked as I would be if Jesus had flung stones at the woman caught in adultery. Why would Aslan do such a thing?

Now in the story Aravis starts out as an arrogant young lady. But by the time of her arrival in the northern lands she is well on the way to becoming, according to Paul Ford, “an example of true Narnian nobility.” She has confronted death and suffering in her desperate quest to be free and she has learned compassion and humility. In her heart she is no longer a Calormene but a woman of the free north. Then, just as she arrives in the land of safety, out jumps Aslan with sharp claws! Welcome to your new life kid.

Aslan tears her because her actions caused the slave to be whipped. It makes you wonder what Aslan would’ve done if the slave girl had been whipped and beaten. What if she had been killed?

So what lesson do children take away from this story?

Perhaps the lesson is that God keeps score and one day He’ll punish you for every sin. Or perhaps the lesson is about suffering. If you’re suffering it means God is punishing you for something you did a long time ago. Or perhaps you’re suffering because you were born in the wrong race, or in the wrong place, or in the wrong gender.

So all in all, the gospel of Aslan is wonderful if your name happens to be Edmund. But it’s not such good news for anyone else. Thankfully Jesus is nothing like that (Mt 5:38-39). Thankfully the true gospel offers grace and mercy to all who would put their trust in Him whether slave or free, man or woman, Calormene or Narnian.

I had a hard time falling asleep last night. Maybe it was Lewis’s legalism that was gnawing on my mind. Or perhaps it was the thought that for the first time in my life I was actually a tiny bit relieved that I don’t live in Narnia.

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Related posts:
- Grace and propitiation in the Chronicles of Narnia
- Grace and love in the Chronicles of Narnia
- How to really overcome discouragement