Puddleglum's Defiance and the Faith That Stamps Out Doubt

In C.S. Lewis's The Silver Chair, there is a moment that every believer should know by heart. The heroes have descended into an underground kingdom where the Queen of the Underworld is working an enchantment. She burns a sweet powder on a fire, strums a mandolin, and speaks in a drowsy, reasonable voice. Slowly, she convinces them that there is no sun, no Overworld, no Aslan. Everything they remember — the sky, the stars, the Lion — is just a made-up story, a children's game.

And it is almost working. The children's minds are going foggy. Even the great Prince Rilian begins to yield.

Then Puddleglum, the gangly, pessimistic Marsh-wiggle — the last character you would expect to be the hero — stamps his bare foot into the enchanted fire. The pain clears his head. And he says something extraordinary. He tells the Witch that even if there is no Aslan and no Overworld, the made-up world sounds better than her real one, and he is going to live as a Narnian even if there is no Narnia.

That is faith. Not the absence of doubt, but the decision to trust what God has shown you even when the world throws smoke in your eyes. Sometimes the Almighty does not remove the fog. Sometimes He simply asks you to stamp your foot and say, "I will follow the light I was given." And that stubborn, limping, smoke-clearing choice is enough.