The Horse and His Boy is the story of Shasta, a boy who has been a slave to a cruel master for as long as he can remember, and his escape to Narnia. With him, travel a Tarkan girl fleeing an arranged marriage and 2 Narnian horses taken into captivity as foals. On the journey, they are met with many hardships and Shasta seems to feel their hardships the most. Near the end of the story, he is wandering in a wilderness lamenting his misfortune when he hears a voice asking him why he feels that he is so unfortunate.
Replying, he recounts the hardships that he has faced. Orphaned. Enslaved. Separated from his friends. Lost. Cold. Hungry. Alone. Chased and frightened by lions. Surely, anyone can see that he is a most unfortunate boy. But the voice tells him “I do not call you unfortunate.”
What? Not unfortunate? Why, even to meet so many lions should be enough to have a legitimate claim to misfortune.
But the voice still disagrees and reveals he was the lion, the only lion, that Shasta has encountered. He tells him,
"I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you."
Those familiar with C.S. Lewis’s work, know that the lion is Aslan, who Lewis used to represent Christ in his stories. And you’re way ahead of me, aren’t you?
It’s easy for us to see how the good things and the neutral things are the hand of God in our lives. That makes sense. It’s harder to recognize His hand when the things we face are painful or frightening or disappointing. It’s often only in looking backwards that we recognize His guidance and His care.
Right now, I feel as though lions were devouring my life. I had such plans before this illness and this pain came upon me. It looks, right now, as if those things are lost. Like Shasta, I stumble a little in the dark and wonder why I am facing such things. I have had days when the disappointment was almost something I could taste. I have had days when I was one Sarah MacLaughlin song away form crawling into bed and never getting out again. But those have been days; I have an entire life of God’s goodness to compare them to. Experience and scripture tell me that He knows the thoughts that He has towards me. I may not have the details or understand the logistics, but I know I have a future and a hope.
So I refuse to call myself unfortunate. I hear Christ saying “I was the lion.” and I am comforted.
Just as Shasta didn’t know the glorious future that was before him and that even his “misfortunes” were vehicles to carry him towards the life that he was born to have, we do not always recognize the lions in our lives as one Lion who is directing our paths. It is through this recognition that we find ourselves at peace with circumstance and at peace with the direction in which those circumstances take us.
The steps of a good man are ordered by the [Lion] and he delighteth in His way.
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