After reading this essay, I was convicted beyond imagination as to my responsibility as a school teacher. As Lewis says, there are no ordinary people, everyone I come in contact with is a eternal being who is on the path to either heaven or hell. Everything I do in the classroom is pointing my students either towards God or away from Him. And that, as Lewis states, is the Weight of Glory.
Lewis describes glory as not in being noticed by others and seeking their approval, but being noticed by God. To hear that blessed phrase "Well done my good and faithful servant". Not just in seeing God's beauty, but passing into it and being a part of it. The weight of it is my responsibility to bear witness of that glory to others and help to bring them into it. Their salvation is my weight, my burden to bear. Isn't that the reason why believers are on this earth? To honor God, and to serve Him?
Lewis is the master of imagery. He brings his readers to an either/or proposition. Either I am going to take responsibility for my neighbors salvation, or I am not. And once he gets you to that point, there is really no decision to make. Your neighbor's soul is your responsibility.
This essay, more than anything I have read to date, has brought me to the realization as to what my responsibility as a Believer is. I need to read this at least once a month to remind me of how I should be living my life before others. No Christian should go without experiencing this challenge to holiness.