My friends,
I open my personal journal to you, my expeditions and explanations with God, this morning.
I was reading an excerpt from C. S. Lewis’, The Screwtape Letters. In this selection, senior devil Screwtape is instructing junior devil Wormwood how to defeat followers of God.
“The long, dull monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather. You see, it is so hard for these creatures to persevere. The routine of adversity, the gradual decay of youthful loves and youthful hopes, the quiet despair (hardly felt as pain) of ever overcoming the chronic temptations with which we have again and again defeated them, the drabness which we create in their lives, and the inarticulate resentment with which we teach them to respond to it – all this provided admirable opportunities of wearing out a soul by attrition. If, on the other hand, the middle years prove prosperous, our position is even stronger. Prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that he is ‘finding his place in it,’ while really it is finding its place in him. His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in him a sense of being really at home on Earth, which is just what we want.”
As I read this I was stunned by the accuracy and pervasiveness of these assaults on a man or woman. I know this to be true by my own experience as well as conversations with others.
“It is so hard for these creatures to persevere.” This is so true. Perseverance is more essential to the Christian life and our calling than we’d like to believe. You and I can do or be just about anything for a moment, but over time who we truly are and our level of fitness will be revealed. We don’t persevere for an instant or a moment, we persevere a season. Only time can give birth to perseverance. Those who possess a “noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it” and who persevere “produce a crop”. (Luke 8:15) There is no fruitfull life with perseverance…in the right things.
The routine of adversity
The gradual decay of youthful loves and youthful hopes
The quiet despair of ever overcoming chronic temptations
The drabness which we create in their lives
The inarticulate resentment with which we teach them to respond to it
Being knit to the World through a sense of being really at home on Earth
Check, check, check, check and check…I am familiar with these assaults and know how effective they are. We must recognize that this is not “the way life is”, accepting it and thereby letting the enemy wear out our soul by attrition. We must not fall under his evil spell. I believe that the way we overcome this assault is to fervently guard our heart, stay close to God and live like an artist in the fellowship of artists. Paul wrote, “I pray that the fellowship of your faith may become effective through the knowledge of every good thing which is in you for Christ’s sake”. (Philemon 1:6)
Winston Churchill said, “Virtuous motives, trampled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute wickedness.”
Fighting inertia and timidity with compelling and courage (I guess that’s what a movement is),
Gary
Gary — once again, you’ve given us a banquet. It articulates the malaise I live with. I’m tired of it, and I want to know what Jesus knows about living well.
Jim, thank you. Once again, your honesty is both refreshing and encouraging. I’m with you brother. We’ll stay fully-alive together. Gary
You mean this is true for others? You mean this has been true in other generations? Wow, that is right on target. Indeed we are reading from the enemy’s playbook.
So much of what Lewis writes resounds with such truth that I have to keep reminding myself that it is not scripture.
Wow, wow and wow! In reading these words something in me awoke to the unvoiced frustration I’ve been feeling with life. The spell I’ve been living under and just accepting as ‘par for the course’. And yes, I’ve responded with an inarticulate resentment. In light of that, ironically I am grateful I have struggled with feelings of failure and inadequacy at work because honestly, I am not sure I could resist the flip of being being successful and ‘knit into the world’ right now. I’m not humble enough for that yet. I know my call is not to just sit back and make friends with my subtle tormentors, but to pursue freedom and run with God. To persevere and live in hope. I have been deeply encouraged tonight. Thanks Gary!
And PS…the third Wow was about your book title…it’s simple and gripping…I LOVE IT!
Yvette, as always, you respond with honesty, sincerity and humility. Your words and life are beautiful. Gary
Gary…I remember you giving a warning to those who would pursue their desire by saying, “you better be prepared to feel a lot”. It is so true. The more I live from my heart the deeper I feel joy, but the deeper I feel pain as well. I am more acutely aware of my glory and when I am walking in it for the benefit of others. I am alive and perseverance is not an issue. It is in the “in between” time that I need to persevere. How do you nourish the heart when deep longings go unmet? I can see why few choose to live from the heart.
Yep. That’s why God keeps speaking to me about living like an artist. We are practicing our artistry at some level all the time or doing things to facilitate our practice and offering of our art.
Wow here too. The response of my particular heart, like usual for me, is to rejoice in the contrast of the perspective of Jesus with the perspective of the word and the enemy, and to let Jesus increase my compassion for others. The world and the devil (or at least the world) looks at attrition, discouragement, perseverance, all those “subjective” personal things, and says, “Oh how mundane.” Their loss, unfortunately. We know the reason for why it is not mundane, but central. It’s because it has to do with the heart. Thanks for your emphasis on the heart, Gary.
Proverbs 20:24
The steps of a man are ruled by the Lord; how can a man then understand his own way?
Psalms 73 pretty much sums things up for me. I know I am not alone in the thought that things in the world going down the slippery slope. And it does not seems to take much for me to be discouraged to the point I just want to give up.
Thank you Gary for your insights.
TW, I know things are very hard right now. I it were not so for you. Hold on to the promise that seasons change, that this too shall pass. You have the strength and endurance to weather this storm no matter what the aftermath may leave the terrain looking like. TW, you are a good man, a man who walks with God, a man with a good and noble heart. Stay alive.
“And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…” (Romans 5:2b-6).
Perseverance is to step out of our circumstances by stepping into our character and to become what we are meant to be—a reflection of God’s glory.
Thank you, Gary, for this reminder and timely (for me and, it appears, for others) word. It caused me to rub the fog of my circumstances away from my eyes and see the light of my hope again.
Blessings back to you,
Thank you Jenette. Great scripture and thought. Gary
Gary,
Rich, encouraging and provoking thoughts my friend.
There is a saying wafting its way into more and more hearts everyday, the awakened reality of Father’s intense desire (which in fact began from before the foundations of the earth) to make Himself known within the specifics of our unique everyday events, aka, “living loved.”
If this (living loved) is but a trite placebo, is it any wonder that eventually the lie that use to keep us shackled to that insidious toxic waste of, “I am not” will be jump started all over again?
In my ongoing journey of discovering the truth of whose and who I am, releases in me a formidable strength to face today and beyond because of the growing knowing of His joy over me, his son.
The joy of my Father, is, my strength.
Rich