To be completely honest, Book 1 of Mere Christianity confused me more than I thought it would. But, I understood a few points that he made that felt applied directly to my way of thinking. More often than not, I think that when I do something for someone, I feel like the person should thank me or do something nice in return. I'm learning more and more that I should not expect that, I cannot expect that. The Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches the complete opposite.
C.S. Lewis said that when we do that, we are asking that person to appeal "to some kind of behavior which [we] expect the other man to know about." Just because my parents taught me to act a certain way does not allow me to presume that others were raised as such. Who knows? Maybe something else I do ticks people off all the time. I'm sure that's more than a maybe.
Lewis goes on to expound later on that when we "say a man ought not to act as he does," we are just saying that "what he is doing happens to be inconvenient to [us]." We cannot allow this to rule our lives. We must look beyond that selfish viewpoint and remember that things aren't always easy, that we are here to serve our fellow-men and look out for the betterment of others.
We know and understand ourselves. The thing is, we have to take the time to do that. Lewis said that "There is one thing which we know... that one thing is man. We do not merely observe men, we are men." Being men allows us to look within ourselves and see the flaws, and change, to understand our meaning, why we are here and what we are to accomplish. Right and wrong becomes clear when we understand our position and place.
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