SCREWTAPE CHAPTERS 5-8

[Kevin Young]

I really enjoyed reading the posts about chapters 1 through 4. I didn't see very many people post though. So you guys let me know if we need to slow down. I know that we are not reading very many pages, but C.S. Lewis is deep and he definitely has an enormous vocabulary.... so if it would help for us to go slower so we have time to digest what C.S. (I mean Screwtape) is saying, just let me know and we can do that. I would really love to see more people post this week and share the thoughts that you are having about chapters 5-8. Here we go. Love you guys.

[Bob]

My big thing is that it's Finals time. They're less than three weeks away now! So my time's been limited.

Hence, I'm posting at 2:30AM instead of posting.

[Kevin Young]

Whew man..... chapter 8 is huge, and full of life lessons. Wormwood is excited because his patient's religious phase is dying out. But Screwtape begins explaining to him that God uses the low times, the valleys, the "troughs", as his method "to get permanent possession of a soul." God in fact uses valleys more than peaks in growing his children. Screwtape said, "....some of his favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else." This must be why James says to believers, "Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. But endurance must do its complete work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing" James 1:2-4 HCSB. God's way of making us "mature" and "complete" is through trials, valleys, and troughs. And if you have been going through a really "long" trial, then you just might be one of God's favorites!

I love it when Screwtape says, "He (God) really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself." Amen!!! That got me so excited. God really wants us to be like Him. He really wants us to be His hands and feet to the world. May I never lose sight of that. "He wants servants who can finally become sons.... He wants to give out.... He is full and flows over..... He wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct."

I have a huge smile on my face after reading these chapters today. This book is amazing.

[ImageBearer13]

I'm hoping to post soon, but with Thanksgiving this week, I may be late again. haven't even started chapter 5.

[Disciple Stac]

In Chapter 6 I liked the part about ..."it's your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross, but only the things he is afraid of." it goes on to say "let him forget that, since they are incompatible, they cannot all happen to him, and let him try to practise fortitude and patience to them all in advance. For real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different hypothetical fates, is almost impossible, and the enemy does not greatly assist those who are trying to attain it: resignation to present and actual suffering is easier and is usually helped by this direct action.".....means to me to stop worrying about things that MIGHT happen or COULD happen and give it all to God and deal with what is in front of me and Pray about that and let God work in the situation that I'm in. Not try to control several different things at once that may never happen.

Chapter 8- the part about "He wants them to learn to walk and must take away his hand, and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles". WOW...to have Faith thru trials and even if we stumble, it's okay...big picture, it's all for us to learn something and take something away from the trial that will draw us closer to God....and still obey. He still loves us when we fall.

[*Elena]

Chapter 7:

We want the Church to besmall not only that fewer men may know the Enemy but also that those who do may acquire the uneasy intensity and the defensive self-righteousness of a secret society or a clique. The Church herself is, of course, heavily defended and we have never yet quite succeeded in giving her all the characteristics of a faction; but subordinate factions within her have often produced admirable results, from the parties of Paul and of Apollos at Corinth down to the High and Low parties in the Church of England

While reading this part I had to think of the prayer of Jesus in John 17:

11 Holy Father, I am no longer in the world. I am coming to you, but my followers are still in the world. So keep them safe by the power of the name that you have given me. Then they will be one with each other, just as you and I are one.

15 Father, I don't ask you to take my followers out of the world, but keep them safe from the evil one.

21 I want all of them to be one with each other, just as I am one with you and you are one with me. I also want them to be one with us. Then the people of this world will believe that you sent me.
22 I have honored my followers in the same way that you honored me, in order that they may be one with each other, just as we are one. 23 I am one with them, and you are one with me, so that they may become completely one. Then this world's people will know that you sent me. They will know that you love my followers as much as you love me.

[awelch13]

Chapter 6 is probably one of the most timely messages I've received in a while.

"We want him to be in the maximum uncertainty, so that his mind will be filled with contradictory pictures of the future, every one of which arouses hope or fear. There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human's mind against the Enemy. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them."

I have a problem...and it's that I worry. I fuss about so many things if they don't follow the plan I have in my head. I know I shouldn't worry. I know all the verses by heart. But I must not believe them, because almost every day something happens and I worry again. It's as if I can't rest and know God will take care of me no matter what. Here though, Screwtape lets me in on what I can do. Since it is hard to stop worrying and dwell on nothing...I can focus those energies on what I am doing and can do for God. Then, I pray, as my focus shifts I will learn true peace and rest that I cannot understand.

[S_arah]

I just read letter 8, And i really loved it!
It is obvious at the beginning of the letter that Screwtape is growing more and more annoyed with Wormwood for being such an amateur. I like the part where Screwtape corrects Wormwood by stating his Law of Undulation;
"Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation – the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back."

Screwtape reveals the difference between God and the devil.
while God would have us be “replicas of Himself,” to Satan “a human is primarily food…” God would have us be servants who become sons. God wants us to be His children, Satan would have us be cattle that become food.
I loved that part as well and I really have to keep that in mind.

[IsraelB]

Chapter 6
I tend to be a 'big picture' person, seeing the vast landscape and missing the details. It's these details that I think Lewis is referring to as a way to show our love to our neighbors, home and away.

"The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbours whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know".

To me, its so easy to take pity and express my empathy towards the unfortunate around the world and at the same time withhold the love of Christ (unintentionally of course) from my neighbors and people near me. Sometimes that takes the form of disrespect of authority, sometimes in withholding charity from the needy but either way I can see the demons glee in focusing all my attention on things far, far away from me while those around me cry out.
*cough* Eph 4:32 *cough*
Why is that? Probably because I can't really get annoyed with the sponsored child overseas, but I can get annoyed and irritated with my roommate. See what I mean? Empathy needs a face to attach, so when I overlook those closest to me I strip them of that face.

[Sparkz4Christ]

I read these chapters last week, but forgot to post durr

Chapter 6 - "There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human's mind against the Enemy."

I get so worried, so easily...and most of the time it's for no reason at all. So this line hit pretty hard and made me more aware of when I worry and what I worry about and remembering to pray more too (Phil 4:6 and 4:13 -need to make these 2 verses a tattoo so I don't forget 'em lol).

Chapter 7 - "Once you have made the world an end, a faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing...The more 'religious' (on those terms) the more securely ours."

Chapter 8 - "One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gradually 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 it's miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His."

Awesome

[annchen]

Chapter 6 is probably one of the most timely messages I've received in a while.

"We want him to be in the maximum uncertainty, so that his mind will be filled with contradictory pictures of the future, every one of which arouses hope or fear. There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human's mind against the Enemy. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them."

I have a problem...and it's that I worry. I fuss about so many things if they don't follow the plan I have in my head. I know I shouldn't worry. I know all the verses by heart. But I must not believe them, because almost every day something happens and I worry again. It's as if I can't rest and know God will take care of me no matter what. Here though, Screwtape lets me in on what I can do. Since it is hard to stop worrying and dwell on nothing...I can focus those energies on what I am doing and can do for God. Then, I pray, as my focus shifts I will learn true peace and rest that I cannot understand.

worrying is, by far, my biggest problem, too. some days nearly everything can really scare me. its hard to fight and look upon god. but it's worth every tear and all the sweating.


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 a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken,...and still obeys.

this part is just PURELY AWESOME!! it gives me so much joy and strenght right now to stand up, smile, clench my fist and...OBEY.
wow.

[*Elena]

Chapter 8:

This morning I was not very happy, in fact I was discontented.
And I prayed in a sad mood.
So now I'm reading chapter 8 and it says:
'The dryness and dulness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will o us no good unless you make a good use of it.'
I feel like I'm going through dryness and dulness, but it's a natural phenomenon. Maybe it even has something to do with the winterseason.
And then I read:
'Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best.'
That is the opposite I expected. I was really complainting to God and I didn't feel very good about that. But maybe it is pleasing to God that I lay my life before Him even when I'm displeased with it.