C.S.Lewis

I was reading the other day and came across one of my favorite thoughts by C.S. Lewis. Summing up what he said would not do him justice so here it is...."The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone, you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him less. There is, indeed, one exception. if you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his 'gratitude', you will probably be disappointed. (People are not fools: they have a very quick eye for anything like showing off, or patronage.) But whatever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, to dislike it less." Mere Christianity pg 131There is a whole chapter on this some topic of charity toward people you may not like. He talks about how not liking someone isn't a sin just the way it is. However not doing charity toward those you don't like is. You can't help what you feel it is simply a natural instinct. It is what you do with those feelings that is important. True charity comes from doing good because as he said, they are a "self" just as we are. I really needed to be reminded of this because at times I have let those who have let me down because they lacked charity and I needed their help to really get me down. I am learning more and more that charity is hard for most people. Not to say in anyway that I am perfect but to be told that someone could use help and turn my back is something I simply can't do. I hope that this little inside look at charity will help me grow to do charity toward those I don't like. (This area I really suck at!) Just a thought that was on my mind yesterday!