“If [the gods] had an honest intention to guide us, why is their guidance not plain?”
—Orual of C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces
The ugly daughter of a violently abusive king, princess Orual has reason for resentment. The gods are cruel. They rob her of loved ones. They fill her life with pain and sorrow—and false hope: “We are their bubbles; they blow us big before they prick us.” They rig the game against its players: “That’s just like the gods . . . drive you to do a thing and then punish you for doing it.”
If the gods really want humans to do their will, why do they make it so confoundingly hard to discern it? C.S. Lewis’s pagan protagonist passes through a dark valley that feels uncomfortably familiar—“If God had an honest intention to guide me, why is his guidance not plain?”
Why is God’s will always so subtle?
Why does he make it so hard for earnest believers—men and women who want nothing other than to please God and do his will—to please him and do his will?
Till We Have Faces is an indictment; Orual is certain the problem lies in heaven. From her perspective, the gods have been operating behind a curtain, moving in mysterious and twisted ways. The irony is, she’s the one with a literal veil over her face, a veil she hung herself.
When we cannot see his will, we always are so certain that the fault lies with God: SPEAK UP! SPEAK PLAINER! SPEAK! But could our inability to see God’s will actually stem from our own willful blindness?
Perhaps we don’t hear because we have our hands over our ears. Or perhaps we don’t hear because our hearts are so “diamond-hard” (Zech 7:12) in self-justification, unthankfulness, and resentment that were God to speak, we would only cite his words as further evidence against him.
In the end, Orual learns that in order to hear we must first love.
Perhaps God is not whispering to hide his will at all. Maybe he is whispering because he wants us to lean in—he wants us closer, nearer to his heart.
Listening is not usually a sense you associate with baking. Smell? Yes. Sight? Yes. Taste? Obvs. Touch? Totally. But Hearing?
I remember scoffing at Great British Bake-Off contestant Peter Sawkins as he explained that he listened to his bakes. But Peter had the last laugh.
For several years now I’ve used Peter’s hearing test: “You can get it to the point where you've baked it and you cannot hear anything. And that's when I know it's over-baked, because I want a bit of that gentle simmer to be running. And then the carryover cooking will finish it and make a lovely moist sponge."
Lean in toward an under-baked cake, and you will actually hear the bubbling of uncooked batter. The same goes for cookies, muffins, and more. When you open the oven, pull the pan close, and when you hear a subsiding like water just off the boil, you know the bake is complete.
Peter’s not a British Bake-off winner for nothing! Listen to your bakes!