So why was CS Lewis so successful?

Was good question asked yesterday in the light of our time looking at 2 Corinthians 4:7-12.  If God's power is most seen through a Christians's weakness, which reveals Jesus' resurrection power, how can he work through the wordly success of a popular radio personality, children's author, Christian apologist and Oxbridge academic like Lewis?

 

Well have a read of Lewis' letters, or a good biography, and you'll find that behind all Lewis' apparent success was real weakness and suffering - the early death of his mother, years of caring for a woman with dementia, life with an alcoholic brother - and all of that before his wife died of cancer shortly after their wedding. Lewis so successfully pointed people to Jesus in his broadcasts, letters and books precisely because of his weakness and sufferings.

 

Let me give just one example. In The Magician's Nephew one of the most moving parts is this conversation between the boy Digory (whose mother is dying) and the lion Aslan (who is, of course, the Christ of the Narnian world):

"But please, please - won't you - can't you give me something that will cure Mother?" Up till then he had been looking at the Lion's great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at his face. What he saw puzzled him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion's eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory's own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.

"My son, my son," said Aslan. "I know. Grief is great."

CS Lewis, The Magician's Nephew, (p.57 of The Complete Chronicles of Narnia).

I can think of few passages that more beautifully communicate the truth of a God who knows what it is to experience grief. How did Lewis manage it? Just because he was a successful author? No because he had suffered huge grief himself and here used that experience to point others to Jesus. To point them to how Jesus' power had kept him going in the midst of such sufferings. Surely a pretty good example of 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 in action?