“He’s wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.”
These words are from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. They describe Aslan, the Lion, the King of Narnia. This non-tameness of Aslan is a theme throughout the Chronicles of Narnia series. When four children—Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy Pevensie—stumble through a wardrobe in England into another world called Narnia, they find themselves embroiled in a war to free Narnia from eternal winter. To do this, they will need to join Aslan’s army. They are first introduced to the name and character of Aslan by Mr. and Mrs. Beaver early in the story. Upon being told that they are to meet Aslan, and that Aslan is a lion, a worried Susan asks, “Is he—quite safe?” Mr. Beaver, aghast, explains, “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
As Christians, we also believe in Someone ‘not safe, but good.’ Aslan is how Lewis imagined Jesus would come into a world like Narnia, so Lewis draws often drops hints connecting the two. As evidence of this, in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lewis explains that Aslan is in our world too, but has a different name there. Aslan tells the children that the purpose of bringing them to Narnia was that “by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.” In other words, Aslan is intended as a way to help people understand God and Jesus better.
For a children’s series, the idea that God isn’t safe is a difficult theological truth. At least, I know that I personally find it difficult. My nature wants to be able to predict things. I want control. Wouldn’t it be easier to believe in a god who did things the way I thought they should be done, according to what I thought was right?
But God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8). He can’t be tamed or kept in a pocket. What we must trust in is His goodness. Elsewhere in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, when the children finally meet Aslan in person, Lewis says this: “People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time.” But we know that God is both terrifying and good. He’s not a tame Lion. But He is good. The difficult thing about faith is having to trust that even though we can’t predict what He will do, and even though we may not understand or agree with it, He will always make the right choice—“The Lord is just! He is my rock! There is no evil in him!” (Psalm 92:15).
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