Recognizing Compromise in Recovery
One of our most popular sessions in our small group curriculum is session nine: Recognizing Compromise (thirteen in the third edition coming later this summer). In this session, participants examine the areas of their lives that haven’t quite surrendered to this mission of recovery, and what the Lord is desiring to heal in these parts of their hearts. One of the messages we use to drive this home is the story of the red lizard and the white horse in C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce.
The story paints a powerful image. The main character takes a trip to Heaven with several souls from Hell, and witnesses the conversion of a soul weighed down by the devastation of sin—in this case, sins of lust. After an angel asks the soul over and over again whether they want the lizard on their shoulder killed—the lizard representing temptation—so they can enter Heaven, the soul finally consents, almost to the point of exhaustion, and gives God permission to take this last thing away. What the soul doesn’t know, however, is that once the lizard is killed, it transforms into a beautiful white horse, carrying the soul to Heaven.
Many of us know what the big lizards are in our lives: pornography, pride, money, hookup culture, perverse media consumption. But it’s the smaller, more harmless looking lizards that tend to pass our notice: listening to explicit music, gossiping, scrolling social media looking for entertainment in the lives of others. It’s the little things that we make excuses for, because how will we live without our phones?
How are we supposed to stay connected to people without social media?
What will we do with our free time if we quit watching the news?
Now, these things are not inherently wrong; it’s good to connect with friends and family; it’s good to stay up-to-date on current events; it’s good to let your mind relax and have times of leisure. But we’re all unique, unrepeatable sons and daughters of God, which means we also have unique, unrepeatable opportunities for grace—and for temptation.
I think one of the reasons this session is so popular among participants is it invites you to hold a magnifying glass up to your heart, and press an ear toward what God is speaking to you. Every single day as we prepare for Eternal Rest, He is calling to us:
“May I kill it?”
“May I heal you?”
“May I come in?”
So the question becomes: what is it He wants to kill?
What needs to die in order for God’s Will to live?
What are you prepared to do for Him who loves you?
It doesn’t have to be big, or fancy, or grandiose. It just needs to be earnest. It needs to be out of love. It needs to be an invitation for Him to enter.
Imagine what God could do for you once you set these compromises aside and live fully for Him.
Imagine what white horses may enter your life.
Imagine how they might carry you to Heaven.