Screwtape Letters

After reading the letter twelve of the Scewtape letters. I was fascinated by the idea that Lewis had the insight to think as a demon would.  Most people even Christians spend little time thinking about spiritual warfare, but Lewis recognized this as a major fault of Christians, then amazingly was able to put himself in the mind of the enemy. Then examine humankind in a way that a demon would. In order to help Christians overcome the enemy by showing them their own weaknesses that the enemy uses to exploit them. One example Lewis gives as a tactic of the enemy was the art of distraction in everyday common things. In class we talked about how there is no such thing as an unimportant choice, because the habitual actions that we take end up shaping who we become. Personally, I know I’m guilty of not treating every action as important, especially in my leisure time. Many times I end up sitting in front of the tv watching shows I don’t like simply because it’s something to do and I need a break from work. I’m really not sure why I do this because honestly I probably have ten other things I would rather do, and plenty of other things I should do.

Another Point that Screwtape addresses to wormwood is the fact that he thinks it’s good that the patient is going to church. At first I thought that this a contradiction, why would a demon think it good that a man be going to church? But after I continued reading I understood that if the patient goes to church and doesn’t learn anything. Then no spiritual growth happens ,but the patient is lured into a false sense of security. He believes that by going to church he is still a good person fulfilling his Christian duty but in reality he is just falling away. In order to combat this behavior we need to be intentional in our spiritual walk. By taking steps towards improvement in the Christian devotions we can be sure that progress is made because the work is intentional. However, the intentional behavior shouldn’t be just applied to the spiritual side of our lives but all forms.  In class Paulo gave the example in soccer of being able to use both feet only after long hours of practice. So that when the situation came up that he needed to use his non-dominate foot he would be able to trap the ball then score no problem. The analogy describes the  usefulness of responses for temptation in any area of life. The idea behind it is that when temptation comes we will be more effective in resisting it if we have already thought about the issue at hand. That way when temptation strikes we won’t have to debate as hard in our head sin overcome it because the right choice is there we only need to choose it.

On a darker note another thing that sort of bothered me was the discussion about how the road to hell is easy. I often think of curtain sins as more bad than others, but I forget that God can’t stand any sin so they are all equally bad before him. The screwtape letters addresses this when Screwtapes says that murder isn’t necessary if cards will do. This is scary because I often think highly of myself because I’m not murdering or stealing from people or anything like that. So I’m doing good right? Not really, all my little sins our accumulating and I don’t even realize it. This is defiantly an area of life I need to work harder at. I have been lulled into a thinking exactly what the enemy wants.