Stallion
“What stood before me was the greatest stallion I have ever seen, silvery white but with a mane and tail of gold. It was smooth and shining, rippled with swells of flesh and muscle, whinnying and stamping with its hoofs.”
- C.S. Lewis, from “The Great Divorce”
Our worldview contains an enemy. One intended to be an angel among angels broke fellowship with his creator and took on the role of the chief antagonist in the biblical narrative. One of the most beautiful, glorious, and mighty in God's angel army changed teams. Humanity has been battling against this opposite and not relatively equal force since the garden of Eden.
If your worldview doesn't contain this character, very little of what is going on in your world will make any sense. The only other two obvious conclusions are not only wrong but very destructive. One assigns every kind of difficulty, hardship, and pain to our failure, and the other rests the blame entirely on a God set against us.
We have a hardened enemy set against our every step in God's direction. He is the source of more of the difficulty in your life than you realize.
In the "Great Divorce," C.S. Lewis illustrates that reality and gives us a glimpse into the power of what the rescue looks like. A shrouded, dingy character encounters an angel. And while the character consents to a meeting with that angel, the lizard on his shoulder resists. Ultimately, it comes on the condition of its' silence. The angel immediately recognizes the problem of the lizard and offers to destroy the beast.
While the lizard is the whispering source of every doubt, fear, and lack of confidence, it has also become very comfortable and familiar. The central character isn't sure he could survive without it. And when the angel increases his offer to destroy the lizard, it breaks its' vow of silence and makes the last attempt to save itself and maintain its' captivity over the subject.
The angel persists and his destroying the lizard produces two incredible outcomes.
An almost angel sized man with similar glory emerges from where the dingy shrouded character once stood.
The lizard left for dead on the ground transforms into a magnificent white stallion of equal proportions to the fully realized man.
The scene ends with the fully restored man riding off on the stallion in all its' transformed glory. This is a beautiful picture of what was meant for all of us. It even shows us the original intended glory for the fallen angel that became our spiritual enemy.
All of us feel the impact of that whispering lizard. It is the source of our fear, our lack of clarity, and our reluctance to make decisions and lead well. It is experienced by every person we lead and every person in our homes. It shrouds and clouds the original and intended glory of all our lives and our leadership.
While all of this may seem like it shouldn't fit in a leadership curriculum and experience, we believe it is not only powerfully helpful but, if left unchecked, may completely inhibit your ability to apply any leadership or business teaching from any source.
At a recent offsite, we got to watch a leader, shrouded with a lack of clarity, uncertainty, and fear, rise to his original intended glory and ride off into the sunset on a white stallion that had hours before been his tormentor. It is one of the more glorious things we get to experience as coaches.
Consider
Are you aware of the whispering serpent in your life?
What is it saying to you? What result is it producing?
How much more free and clear would you feel without it?