Week 8: The Screwtape Letters - Persevering to the End

"To be greatly and effectively wicked a man needs some virtue."  [Screwtape to Wormwood]  

In Letter 29 we discover the patient's hometown will soon fall victim to German bombing.  Wanting to take advantage of the fear this will engender, Screwtape contemplates several possible directions  Wormwood might take.  On the one hand, fear could lead the patient into courage, which in turn might lead to pride.  But it's also possible courage might give the Enemy [i.e. God] a foothold in his life.

On the other hand, cowardice, with its potential for hatred, might prove fruitful. "Hatred," he writes, "is ... often the compensation by which a frightened man reimburses himself for the miseries of Fear ... And hatred is also a great anodyne for shame."  But it's admittedly a tricky endeavor, since cowardice is not a vice most men take pride in.  There is also the danger that cowardice might "produce real self-knowledge and self-loathing with consequent repentance and humility."

Screwtape then suggests a third approach. "Precautions have a tendency to increase fear."  He advises, "Get his mind off the simple rule ('I've got to stay here and do so-and-so') into a series of imaginary life lines."  Properly developed this might even lead into superstition.  "Keep him feeling that he has something, other than the Enemy and courage the enemy supplies, to fall back on...".  Having been born and raised in New England, I can identify with that sin!  Often my first thought is to self-sufficiently deal with a problem using my own wits, proceeding under my own power.  It can be so easy to spend all my time on the path of "what if?" and how easily that can degenerate into superstition! With age,  I've learned to keep my eyes on the Lord and off the "what ifs" and instead, to pray and  line up MY will with God's purposes.  I keep moving forward, but I do so with the understanding that God can work in amazing ways above and beyond anything I can imagine, should He choose to do so!  I try not to "second guess" how God will deal with a problem.  Instead, I bring it before His throne and trust in His goodness and power.  I also struggle to not "set time-tables" within which I expect God to work.  Focusing on my dependence and God's sovereignty gives me a completely different outlook on difficulties and trials!  The Psalmists understood this, which is why I think we find such comfort and direction there...

I shall remember the deeds of the LORD; 

Surely I will remember Your wonders of old. 

I will meditate on all Your work And muse on Your deeds. 

Your way, O God, is holy; What god is great like our God? 

You are the God who works wonders ... [Psalm 77:11-14] 

Letter 30 The patient proves to have been quite faithful during the first air strikes, much to Wormwood's chagrin.  "He has been very frightened and thinks himself a great coward and therefore feels no pride; but he has done everything his duty demanded and perhaps a bit more." That's not the outcome Screwtape had hoped for!  He does hold out hope that the patient's fatigue might be successfully manipulated, though fatigue has also been known to "produce extreme gentleness, and quiet of mind, and even something like vision."  Screwtape finds "moderate fatigue is a better soil for peevishness than absolute exhaustion... It is not fatigue... that produces the anger, but unexpected demands on a man already tired.  Whatever men expect they soon come to think they have a right to: the sense of disappointment can, with very little skill... be turned into a sense of injury."

Colin recently asked if I could remember our first experience with air conditioning. It occurred during our honeymoon, which was spent at my Aunt and Uncle's home in Newport News, Virginia in early August.  Neither of us had grown up with air conditioning in homes, cars or stores.  We recalled sleeping outside and on porches as children, because of the oppressive heat on the second stories of our homes.  At the time neither of us thought it unusual to be hot, listless and uncomfortable during the summer months.  Now, having experienced air conditioned cars and buildings as the "norm", it would seem burdensome for us to be without them!  "Whatever men expect they soon come to think they have a right to."

But what if God placed me somewhere where air conditioning didn't exist ... would I murmur and complain and demand my "rights"?  How many other areas might affect us this way?  How did you feel not having Internet access during last winter's ice storm?  What if you didn't have a cell phone and couldn't text your friends?  What if you suddenly had only one car in your family?  What if you lost your good health?  "Whatever men expect they soon come to think they have a right to."

Letter 31 brings a sudden end to Screwtape & Wormwood's correspondence.  Wormwood has lost the battle for his patient's soul. The man has been killed by a German bomb ... his faith persevering to the end!  Death of the body was able, at last, to clear his senses to reality.  Screwtape writes to Wormwood, "There was a sudden clearing of his eyes... as he saw you for the first time, and recognized the part you had had in him and knew that you had it no longer.  Just think (and let that be the beginning of your agony) what he felt at that moment; as if a scab had fallen from an old sore, as if he were emerging from a hideous, shell-like tetter [skin sore], as if he shuffled off for good and all a defiled, wet, clinging garment."

Ever since I first became aware of the inevitability of my own death when my cerebral aneurysm was discovered in my early 30's, I've often meditated upon what it will be like when this body with its attached sin nature is at last detached from my spirit and soul ... the REAL me.  How we cling to these bodies, yet how glad we shall be to be free of them someday!  It's also amazing to think about the clarity of sight that will afford, compared to the limited vision we now have!  That's why I am so very thankful to have God's revelation to make me aware of all the things I cannot currently fathom on my own!  How encouraging those truths are when I am engulfed in difficulties, pain or trials!  How wonderfully comforting that I am able to look beyond my own perceptions and emotions and place my trust in the One who sees it all, knows it all, and controls it all!

This ends our study of "The Screwtape Letters".  I trust you have found the book to be a challenge and encouragement to your own Christian walk.  I pray that you no longer view the vagaries of daily life in quite the same way you did before reading Lewis' classic work.  My prayer for all of us is that we would always seek God first, that we would be quick to trust Him and that we would respond to His providential care with love, obedience, patience and thankfulness. To God be the glory!

[I have purchased the Focus on the Family radio drama based upon the book. If you would like to borrow it after you've finished reading, please let me know.]

[Week #1]