Doing what must be done

Another take from C.S. Lewis', Perelandra. This section is right after Elwin Ransom and the Voice talk about what must be done--he must fight the evil one who inhabits the scientist, Westin. "The thing seemed impossible. But gradually something happened to him which had happened to him only twice before in his life. It had happened once while he was trying to make up his mind to do a very dangerous job in the last war. It had happened again while he was screwing his resolution to go and see a certain man in London and make to him an excessively embarrassing confession which justice demanded. In both cases the thing had seemed a sheer impossibility: he had not thought but know that, being what he was, he was psychologically incapable of doing it; and then, without any apparent movement of the will, as objective and unemotional as the reading on a dial, there had arisen before him, with perfect certitude, the knowledge "about this time tomorrow you will have done the impossible." The same thing happened now." What amazing contrast is here portrayed--the courage of war and it's terror and the personal humiliation of an untidy confession. So different, yet each required the kind of courage or pluck or whatever that comes only from without. These pages grip me deeply. Lord, give me such courage to do whatever I must, no matter how scared I am.... "His fear, his shame, his love, all his arguments, were not altered in the least. The thing was neither more nor less dreadful than it had been before. The only difference was that he knew--almost a historical proposition--that it was going to be done. He might beg, weep, or rebel--might curse or adore--sing like a martyr or blaspheme like a devil. It made not the slightest difference. The thing was going to be done. . . . "...You might say, if you liked, that the power of choice had simply been set aside and an inflexible destiny substituted for it. On the other hand, you might say that he had delivered from the rhetoric of his passions and had emerged into unassailable freedom. Ransom could not, for the life of him, see any difference between these two statements. Predestination and freedom were apparently identical. He could no longer see any meaning in the many arguments he had heard on this subject." There are times when God so works in one's life that it cannot be determined who is doing what. Maybe this is something that Paul hints at in Philippians 2. "Work out your salvation in fear and trembling for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." I think it is what Steve Brown means when he says, "You take the first step, God takes the second step and by the time you get to the third step you see that He was at work in you all along!" By His grace, we can do what we must.