"Screwtape"

I am re-reading "The Screwtape Letters" by CS Lewis. I recommend it. It's a good read and often very convicting. The book is a series of letters written from a demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, Wormwood (keep reading before you think I am a heretic!). Young wormwood (who's correspondence we don't get to read but do get the gist from Screwtape's reply letters) writes his "affectionate" uncle Screwtape to get advice on how to get his "patient" (a new believer) to live a life NOT for the Glory of the "Enemy"...namely, Christ. Last night I read these words and they have encouraged me to press on and to discipline myself unto godliness. The comments in brackets below are my comments to help you understand some meanings a bit more...Screwtape writes,

"Humans are amphibians- half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodeis, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation- the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs [trials] and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department in his life...as long as he lives on earth, periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which our patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.

To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy [remember the "Enemy" is Christ because the book is written from a demons view of things] wants to make of it, and then do the opposite. Now, it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on teh troughs even more than the on the peaks; some of His special favorites have gone thru longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the asorbption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all hte talk about HIs love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, in not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself- creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitiatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them bt because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food, He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below [the devil] has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still disctinct.

And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo...the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimiliate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of offairs to last long. Sooner or later, He withdraws, ifnot in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs- to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered int he state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the mroe their will is interfered with, the better. He cannot "tempt" to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon the universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys." (p.36-39)

You might read this and say, "Crystal, this isn't right theology...it seems that Lewis is purposing we pull ourselves up by the boot straps." But, I think Lewis is simply saying the process of becoming more like Christ takes a lot of work and we're not always going to feel the presence of our Lord. And, none of this can be done without the Spirit...but we have to be disciplined to work at it too. We are commanded (yes, commanded!) "...to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (II Peter 3:18), and "...to set your mind on the things of the Spirit" (Rom 8:5), to "flee immorality" (I Cor. 6:18), and "to discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness" (I Tim 4:7). Martha Peace, in her book the "Excellent Wife" reminds us that "we have to work to become more like Christ." Yes, God will enable us by the work of His Spirit but we must seek after it, pursue and discipline ourselves. Will you join me in this pursuit? It's going to hurt, you will probably shed tears, you will be put thru the fire and refined, but you will be more pure and will know God more deeply and isn't that eternal life..."and this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You sent" (John 17:3)? It's not just about escaping the fires of hell...it's more about KNOWING Christ. So, let us press on to KNOW Him.