“Welcome, Prince,” said Aslan. “Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the kingship of Narnia?”

“I – I don’t think I do, sir,” said Caspian.

“Good,” said Aslan. “If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not.”

These are words from children’s fiction. They are from C. S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian and they have stayed with me for years.

Even now when I read these words, I can still hear the voice of the late Ronald Pickup apparently emanating from the mouth of an animatronic lion, the lips not quite synchronised with the sounds, on the BBC TV adaptation of the novel. As I have gone through life, these words have had deeper meaning for me.

When I was ordained, the bishop reminded me and my fellow priests-to-be that “you cannot bear the weight of this calling in your own strength, but only by the grace and power of God”. I try to keep this in mind as much as possible and I sometimes wonder what things would be like if more people did so.

These days, we often feel we have to be good enough. We have to live up to expectations; we have to achieve certain things or become certain things.

Sometimes we feel we have to manage everything ourselves and not rely on anyone else. Perhaps we feel we can’t rely on anyone else or perhaps we think there isn’t anyone else to rely on.

But maybe we should be more like Prince Caspian and recognise that we cannot go things alone. Maybe we should listen to the words the bishop says at ordination services and try to truly accept in our hearts that we can’t manage everything ourselves, and accept the grace of God into our lives.

And if we do that, we might just discover a little of what Paul meant when he wrote about “him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine”.

Richard Turk, Assistant Curate, Reepham and Wensum Valley Team Churches