SciptureAndPrayers
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At one time or another we have all gone through dry spells where we've felt that God is nowhere to be found. We pray and feel like our prayers are bouncing of the ceiling, we read scripture and are rewarded with a dry feeling, as if the pages had been blank. We ask ourselves, "Where has God gone? What did I do wrong? Did I commit some unpardonable sin? Why would God do this to me? Didn't Jesus say He would never leave me?"
If I may quote C.S. Lewis here . . .
For those of you not familiar with it, there is a book called "The Screwtape Letters." The premise of the book is it is supposed to be a series of letters written by a demon (Screwtape) to one of his underlings (Wormwood) who together are trying to snare a new Christian's soul for the devil. This book highlites all of the different ways in which the enemy will try to tempt, snare and decieve us. Most of them are not real obvious. It was a real eye opener. Anyway, in it Screwtape is describing to Wormwood about Christians going through a "dry spell." Remember, this is a demon talking, so when he refers to "the enemy" he is referring to God (and "the patient" is the Christian):
(I realize this is long, but it provides a good insite into dry spells. If it is too long for you, at least read the last paragraph. And remember, this is from the devil's point of view)
As long as he lives on Earth, periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which your patient are 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 good use of it.
To decide what the best use is, you must ask what use the Enemy 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 even more than on the peaks; some of His special favorites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food; 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. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to **** in, He 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 (Satan) has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.
And this is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power 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 forbids Him to use. Merely to override 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. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; 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, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long.
He leaves the creature to stand on its own legs - to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence, the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best.
He cannot "tempt" to virtue as we do to vice. 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 in more danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks around upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and aks why he has been foresaken, and still obeys.
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In Christ's love. Amen.
Posts: 345 | From: Rochester NY | Registered: Jul 2004
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