Misfortunes Are Not Always What They Seem

(This post is part of a series of posts about The Chronicles of Narnia.)

The Horse and His Boy tells the tale of a young boy raised in Calormen, the country adjoining Narnia. This boy, Shasta, meets a talking Horse named Bree who has lived in captivity in Calormen, and together they start on an escape to Narnia. During their journey they find a girl, Aravis, and another talking Horse, Hwin, who are also escaping to Narnia, and they join forces.

When they are almost to the fortress of Anvard in Archenland, a small border country, they see an army of Calormenes close behind them in the desert. They need to warn the people in Archenland about the coming attack, but the group of Calormene enemies is gaining on them. The horses start running fast.

"Quick! Quick!" shouted Aravis. "We might as well not have come at all if we don't reach Anvard in time. Gallop, Bree, gallop. Remember you're a war-horse."

It was all Shasta could do to prevent himself from shouting out similar instructions; but he thought, "The poor chap's doing all he can already," and held his tongue. And certainly both Horses were doing, if not all they could, all they thought they could; which is not quite the same thing. Bree had caught up with Hwin and they thundered side by side over the turf. It didn't look as if Hwin could possibly keep it up much longer.

At that moment everyone's feelings were completely altered by a sound from behind. It was not the sound they had been expecting to hear—the noise of hoofs and jingling armour, mixed, perhaps, with Calormene battle-cries. Yet Shasta knew it at once. It was the same snarling roar he had heard that moonlit night when they first met Aravis and Hwin. Bree knew it too. His eyes gleamed red and his ears lay flat back on his skull. And Bree now discovered that he had not really been going as fast—not quite as fast—as he could. Shasta felt the change at once. Now they were really going all out. In a few seconds they were well ahead of Hwin.

It's not fair," thought Shasta. "I did think we'd be safe from lions here!"

The two children, Shasta and Aravis, and the two Horses think they are in a most unfortunate circumstance. They think that a cruel lion is chasing them. They are extremely frightened. But suddenly the Horses are running faster than they realized they could run. And they end up arriving in Archenland in time to give warning of the approach of the Calormene enemies. If they had not run as fast as they could have, they would have been too late.

As it turns out, the lion that was chasing them was Aslan, the Christ figure of the Narnia stories. He never really meant to harm them (though he does punish Aravis for something wrong she had done). Instead, he uses the fear that he inspires, when they think he is merely an anonymous wild lion, to get them to do what they need to do. In fact, Shasta, Aravis, Bree, and Hwin had dawdled earlier in their trip and wasted time, even though they knew the Calormene army was on its way. Now Aslan has to take drastic measures to get them to Archenland on time.

So it often is with us. Many times we think we are having unfair bad circumstances. But perhaps God uses these bad situations to get us to do what is right and necessary. Maybe we have dawdled and wasted time, or done what was wrong. We have made a mess of things. Now God needs to take drastic measures to get us back on the right track. "It's not fair," we say. "We did think we'd be safe from lions!" But in fact, the lions are for our good. They get us back to where we need to be. Thank God that he knows how to get us to the right place at the right time! It might seem hard at the moment, but it turns out for the good in the end.