When the Enchantress Couldn't Put Out the Fire

In C.S. Lewis's The Silver Chair, there is a scene that every person who has ever struggled to believe should know. The marsh-wiggle Puddleglum and two children are trapped deep underground, where a witch tries to enchant them into forgetting that the world above exists. She burns a sweet powder that clouds their minds and strums a mandolin that dulls their thoughts. Slowly, they begin to agree with her — maybe there is no sun, no Narnia, no Aslan. Maybe this dark cave is all there is.

Then Puddleglum does something extraordinary. He stamps out her enchanted fire with his bare foot. The pain clears his head, and through gritted teeth he says that even if everything he believes in turns out to be made up, the made-up world sounds a good deal better than anything she has to offer — and he is going to live as a Narnian.

Faith works like that. There will be seasons when the world throws its sweet smoke in your face and whispers that nothing you believe is real. The bills pile up. The diagnosis comes back wrong. The prayers feel like they hit the ceiling. And in those moments, faith is not a feeling. Faith is Puddleglum stamping out the fire — choosing to trust in what the Almighty has revealed, even when the darkness insists otherwise. The writer of Hebrews called it "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Sometimes you believe your way back into the light.