I participate in a weekly Bible study at a local veteran center. Currently, we are reading and discussing C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters.
Dedicated to Lewis’ good friend, J.R.R. Tolkien, this book is a collection of 31 letters from one demon (Screwtape) to his demon nephew (Wormwood) that advise on how to turn an assigned human “patient” away from God and towards Hell.
Regardless of faith, it’s an interesting and worthwhile read. Letter 8 details the highs and lows of our earthly lives and how they can be used to sway us for better or worse.
“As spirits they [humans] belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life—his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. 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 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 good use of it.”
Isn’t that the truth? Our paths in life, interests, emotional states, physical wellbeing, stock portfolio values, relationships, etc. are never linear. Demons like Screwtape and Wormwood are always working to manipulate us through peak and trough periods—but so is God.
“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 even more than the peaks…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. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best.”
The premise of getting closer to God during times of struggle is a common theme in all monotheistic religions, but I’m a firm believer that these “trough” periods also improve our secular lives on Earth. Muscles don’t grow without being strained, relationships that survive challenges are always stronger, and bad times in general make the good times even sweeter.
If you’re going through a trough period, lean on God, dig in, and know that better times are coming. If you’re on top of the peak, remember how you got there.
“And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” - Romans 5:3-4 (NRSV)
