on a snowy thursday.

This excerpt pretty much sums up the thoughts that have been running through my head over the past couple of weeks. Thoughts of how there are so many different denominations .. and even within denominations, so many more different perspectives and views. I will never understand why some feel so strongly convicted about certain issues while others say they have no conviction at all. I've realized that it isn't about what other people do. Sometimes it is all about taking a stand alone. No matter where you are or who you are with, you're not going to agree about everything. It all comes down to reading the Bible, and being open to conviction. . finding your doorway within the long, long hall.

[My view of the excerpt is that the hall represents being a Believer or Christian while the doors stand for the different denominations or churches or views of different Christians. So the "rules common to the whole house" are the blatantly obvious scriptures little disagreement is over, for example, praying for your enemies.]

"It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. For that purpose the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think, preferable. It is true that some people may find they have to wait in the hall for a considerable time, while others feel certain almost at once which door they must knock at. I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait.

When you do get into your room you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping. You must keep on praying for light: and, of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house. And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and panelling. In plain language, the question should never be: 'Do I like that kind of service?' but 'Are these doctrines true: Is holiness here? Does my conscience move me towards this? Is my relunctance to knock at this door due to my pride, or my mere taste, or my personal dislike of this particular door-keeper?'

When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house."

-Mere Christianity
by C. S. Lewis