Further Up/Further In
“The further up and the further in you go, the bigger everything gets. The inside is larger than the outside.” (C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle)
Those words capture the summit of C.S Lewis’s “The Chronicles of Narnia, his mythic retelling of the Bible.
On our journey “further up and further in” God has mapped out a well worn path that sojourning saints have been walking for millennium. We find it in the Psalms. Specifically, in Psalms 120-134, known as the Songs of Ascent. These 15 Psalms would be sung by God’s pilgrims as they would make their way up, up, up, towards Jerusalem in order to prepare their heart, mind, soul and strength to worship before Him.
The Songs of Ascent help us grow as we go. Going and growing. That’s the normal everyday activity of Jesus’ people. And that’s the invitation of Psalms 120-134. That we might keep going and keep growing on our way to our “real county.”
As we walk further up and further in we’ll find out more of who God is, and more of who we are. And when we finally arrive this will be our common refrain: “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!” (C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle)