Whispers from Narnia: Lessons Learned from Watching LWW

Whispers from Narnia

Lucy Pevensie was the first in her family to see Narnia. But the others didn't believe her. When the wardrobe was examined carefully, no door into another world was found; it was closed even to Lucy at that moment. This caused even Lucy to doubt if her experience had been real. Later that night in bed, she could not sleep. She had to know. So she got out of bed and went back to the wardrobe. As her hand reached up for the doorknob, she hesitated. What if it all was a dream? But her desire for truth won out over her doubts--and she opened the door.

As the door opened, a whisper of wind drifted out from Narnia and blew out the candle she was holding, and a smile brightened her face. Though she has not yet seen Narnia again, she knows it awaits her for she has felt the whisper of its breeze upon her face and has seen it blow out the candle's flame. And so she enters through the doorway into that other world with confidence, not yet seeing Narnia but knowing that it awaits her at the other end of the tunnel.

Our own world is full of people wanting our money and even our souls. They shout at us constantly in the din of this world's marketplace, whether it be commercial or religious.
Like Lucy, we need to learn to pay attention to the whispers of God instead of to the shouting of fools. This principle applies to every area of life. Here, it shall be applied to the way God whispered to me as I watched the Disney version of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (hereafter, LWW).

Whatever the faults of this human endeavor, I indeed heard God whisper to me in my spirit throughout this film, just as I have heard him speak to me in other areas where humans try to deal with deep subjects of life and reality and God. Though these efforts may fail in some ways because they involve subjects too deep for any human attempt to fathom, yet they are not a total failure and those who reject such attempts because they may not plunge into the depths of the ocean in a way they deem successful, they are the poorer for not therefore enjoying some wading on the beach.

"And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?" (Job 26:14 NIV).

We are told in Scripture to be discerning, to take the good and reject the bad: "Test everything; hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil" (1 Ths. 5:21,22).

I have tested this film and, despite the objections or misunderstandings of some Christians about certain aspects of it, I still find much to recommend and cannot let what I consider to be good to be spoken evil of (Rom. 14:16). Therefore, I ask you to allow me to share some of what the Spirit whispered to me as I watched it, for there were times when I was simply overwhelmed by the Spirit's presence as he showed me things of the Spirit of God there in the scenes before my eyes. I cried many times as I felt the Lord's presence and I am the richer for having watched this film and desire that others may also benefit from some of what his Spirit communicated to me.

There is no set order to the sections that follow, but they do all proceed from what was experienced while watching the LWW Narnia film with the Lord. And in case that sounds strange to anyone (that I should say that he watched it with me), I recall reading an account of a sister in the Lord who had enjoyed the simple pleasure of watching a beautiful sunset, and who afterwards heard the Lord say to her, "Yes, I enjoyed watching that with you." When we belong to the Lord, all that we do is done in his presence, whether it be watching a sunset or a movie, and that makes all the difference as to what we will see in what we see. For while our eyes can see the surface things, only the Lord can reveal to us the deeper things that lie beneath--and whisper their deeper nature to us in our spirit. Here then are some of what I heard of those whispers from Narnia.

LINKS BETWEEN WORLDS WHISPER

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