How Can We Live, Never Meeting You?

In the final scene of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, book five in The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, Aslan told Edmund and Lewis that they would never be coming back to Narnia. They both despaired at that news, and Aslan said to them, “You are too old, children, and you must begin to come close to your own world now.” Lucy replied, “It isn’t Narnia, you know. It’s you. We shan’t meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?” I love Lucy’s devotion to the one who was a representation of the Savior. Her words remind me of what the Savior prayed to His Father in the presence of His disciples shortly before His death, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). Heaven will not be about the place; it is about who is there, in particular the Father and the Son. Our greatest desire, like that of Lucy’s, should be to come to know Him and to be with Him. The Savior said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I say, Ye never knew me” (JST Matthew 7:32-33). To obtain salvation we must come to know Him, just as in this fictional story Lucy came to know and love and long to be with Aslan.

Aslan replied this way to Lucy’s words: “But you shall meet me, dear one…. There I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.” He suggested then that Lucy and Edmund’s adventures in Narnia were all meant to help them come to know the Savior in their own world. Perhaps He would say something similar about many of the experiences that we have had in our own lives, even those that are difficult: “This was the very reason… that you may know me better.” In our mortal experiences we should seek above all to come to know Him. This was the message from the well-known statement of Francis Webster, “who walked the desolate Wyoming trail with the Martin handcart company in 1856, [and] said in defense of the group, ‘Every one of us came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives, for we became acquainted with him in our extremities.’” In our dispensation the Lord said this, “And again, it shall come to pass that on as many as ye shall baptize with water, ye shall lay your hands, and they shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and shall be looking forth for the signs of my coming, and shall know me” (Doctrine and Covenants 39:23). The end result of entering the gospel path through baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost is to come to know Him.

At the Last Supper the apostle Philip said to Him, “Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.” This caused Jesus to be sorrowful because it indicated the Philip had not come to know Him as he should have. He replied, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?” (John 14:8-9) Our greatest desire should be to come to know Him and be with Him by doing those things He has asked. He declared that one day in the Millennium, “all shall know me, who remain, even from the least unto the greatest, and shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, and shall see eye to eye, and shall lift up their voice, and with the voice together sing this new song, saying: The Lord hath brought again Zion; The Lord hath redeemed his people, Israel” (Doctrine and Covenants 84:98-99). But we need not wait until that day; in all our experiences we should seek to know and meet Him here.