I love the Chronicles of Narnia books. I mean, really love them. I fell in love with them when I was eleven and they are going strong to this day as some of my ultimate favorites to reread. They’re fun, deep, whimsical, adventuresome, and heartwarming all at the same time.
But on a recent reread of the final book, I was struck once again by the seriousness of a certain character. When we open The Last Battle, we are immediately introduced to a sweet little donkey named Puzzle (who my car is coincidentally named after) and a conniving, manipulative ape named Shift.
Shift constantly preys on Puzzle’s simple, gullible understanding to get him to do anything and everything he wants. And Puzzle, feeling he’s just not smart enough to do otherwise, goes along with it. Then one day they find a lion skin and Shift begins his worst manipulation yet. He convinces Puzzle to where the skin as a sort of coat and pretend to be Aslan so the two of them can “improve” Narnia. Puzzle protests, but after more pleading and manipulating from Shift, he concedes.
It would take a whole other blogpost (or, oh I don’t know, book) to explain all the terrible things that follow that decision. Suffice it to say, disaster follows.
Here’s the thing. Puzzle knew what he was doing was wrong. He couldn’t express how he knew it but he did. But when Shift started piling in his own twisted reasoning and telling Puzzle he wasn’t smart enough, Puzzle folded. Deep in his little donkey bones Puzzle truly knew it was wrong, but he believed what Shift was saying about him and his intelligence. What he knew to be true and what he believed and acted on turned out to be two very different things.
Puzzle is a warning sign to us against gullibility. The world can be a nasty, harsh place, and not everyone is going to have our best interests at heart. There will be people who look at you and only see you for what they can get out of you. And I wish I could say the church is immune to that, but human failings come into play there too. People teach for their own gain. They influence you for their own purposes. They coax you into wrongdoing with sweet words and ironclad arguments.
Were meant to be trusting, but on guard. Open, but thinking critically. Curious, but not duped.
So how do we do that?
We educate ourselves on truth and we teach it to ourselves over and over until it’s a reflex. We write what God tells us on our hearts and minds until anything that’s not from him jars us and grabs our attention.
This isn’t a groundbreaking idea. The concept of being sharp and paying attention to manipulation was an important subject for the early church. The New Testament is full of exhortations to remain alert and not be gullible. Jesus warned his disciples to stay alert. Paul enthusiastically praised a church he visited for questioning him thoroughly to make sure he was pointing them properly to God.
Asking questions is not being faithless. It’s being smart enough to know what we’re putting our faith in.
God doesn’t want brainless, blank followers. The goal of faithfulness is not to then turn into mindless believers. We do not take whatever our fellow humans tell us is true and run with it. We hold it up to God’s word and filter everything through what we know to be true.
Faith is foundational. Make no mistake. But we have a responsibility to be sharp and sober minded in our faith.
Make no mistakes, there will be more powerful manipulators in our lives than gaslighting apes with an agenda. When they come we need to know what we stand for, why we stand for it, how we’re not going to budge. We’re so much more than a gullible little donkey. May we live like it.
Let’s find some joy,
A
Avalon Robinson Author 