As I’m reading The Screwtape Letters I sometimes get this mental image of a poor guy with a typical cartoon devil sitting on one shoulder (horns and pitchfork included) and an adorable animated angel on the other (halo optional).
Unfortunately, it’s not as clear-cut and obvious as that. I guess I believed in the existence of demons, but I’m not gonna lie, it kinda scares me to think that they could have the amount of power that they do in Screwtape. I mean they are really going after this guy; every little thing in his life becomes a potential pitfall. His family, his friends, his job, his church, his every thought is constantly under attack.
In class we briefly talked about whether this book still has a message even if demons don’t exist. And if you look at it from that way, it’s still a pretty terrifying picture. The demon then actually becomes us. It’s our fallen human nature that we are constantly fighting against.
At least we can take comfort in the fact that sometimes God does shelter us from the storm. That He can send a black cloud to prevent our demons from attacking, and He really does want us to be happy, that real Pleasure brings us closer to Him.
But that of course begs the question, why doesn’t God make life that way all the time? Because the troughs force us to realize that we can’t do it on our own and we need to surrender to God. At least that’s been my experience. We need the valleys to get out of the clouds and be brought to our knees in humility and we need the mountains to realize the valleys don’t last forever. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it-1Corinthians 10:13.
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