These days I am reading the C. S. Lewis classic 'The Screwtape Letters' again. Here is one of the portions of my today's reading. For those of you who are not familiar with the book, this is written as a fascinating conversation between a commanding demon Screwtape and an executing demon Wormwood. Screwtape is advising Wormwood regarding a new believer addressed as 'the patient'. God is titled as 'the Enemy,' and the devil as 'our Father above.' The portion quoted below concerns the low times a believer is allowed to go through in his life and how the demons see it in context of the work of God in a believer and his obedience. "The dryness and dullness through which your patient (the believer) 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 (God) 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 the troughs (bad times, tests, challenges, hurts etc.) even more than on the peaks (blessings and prosperity); some of His special favourites (our faith heores) have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily good; our aim is the absorption 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. ........ He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself (being conformed to the image of His Son) —creatures, whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them (because we have an individuality and identity in Christ) but because their wills freely conform to His. We (the devil and demons) want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants (in human beings) who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He (God) 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 distinct. And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power (Omnipotence) 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 (free will) forbids Him to use. Merely to over-ride 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 (His love draws a person, rather than force him). For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him (a union and communion), but yet themselves (by personal freewill actions); merely to cancel them, or assimilate 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 (still small voice), seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs (first love, an experience of God's presence and favour) to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact (of course He never leaves us), 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 (by faith action) 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 (spiritual growth). Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness (Romans 8:26, Prodigal son's prayer) 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 more their will is interfered (that is real demonic warfare- making us forget that we can exercise faith while feelings are missing) with the better. He (God) cannot "tempt" to virtue as we (demons) do to vice (that is, God lets people make freewill decisions, while demons try to disable the will). 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 (Wow.. so awesome... the righteous falls seven times and rises again). Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but 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. Jesus said it to the Father from the garden of Gethsamne, "Not my will, but yours be done,." and from the Cross, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? ....... Into Your hands I commit my spirit." **** My comments are in italics. God bless your day. Please Him in your tests today. PS - If you would like to enjoy a thought provoking spirituality quiz, then jump to our fun quiz page. You may also watch our YouTube videos. What about learning about life after death?