CS Lewis once commented along the lines that God doesn’t seem very interested in what we call civilization. His sermon “The Weight of Glory” explains why:
“...Perhaps it seems rather crude to describe glory as the fact of being “noticed” by God. But this is almost the language of the New Testament. St. Paul promises to those who love God not, as we should expect, that they will know Him, but that they will be known by Him (I Cor. viii. 3).
It is a strange promise. Does not God know all things at all times? But it is dreadfully reechoed in another passage of the New Testament. There we are warned that it may happen to any one of us to appear at last before the face of God and hear only the appalling words: “I never knew you. Depart from Me.” In some sense, as dark to the intellect as it is unendurable to the feelings, we can be both banished from the presence of Him who is present everywhere and erased from the knowledge of Him who knows all.
We can be left utterly and absolutely outside—repelled, exiled, estranged, finally and unspeakably ignored. On the other hand, we can be called in, welcomed, received, acknowledged. We walk every day on the razor edge between these two incredible possibilities....
...It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.
All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.
Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.
http://www.verber.com/mark/xian/weight-of-glory.pdf
Looking with mortal eyes, we think nations and culture and civilization are great things and men nothing next to them. Laws are important. Men are not. But in the eyes of God, it is nations and culture and law that are trivial. What matters greatly is not if you are a slave to a mortal man, but if you are a bondservant to God Himself! The number of one’s wives matters far less than if you encourage them to follow and love God, or discourage them. How we raise our children is of great interest to God. Who we vote for...not so much!
Your long quote from C.S. Lewis is, I think, some of bis best writing. Thanks for sending that.
Well posed. Would you please then put the phrase ‘a man after God’s own heart’ into the mill of that wisdom?... to answer how was David a man after God’s own heart.