Change

You may notice some obvious differences in the colors of my blog.

However, the title refers not only to those changes but also to what I read today.

As I believe I mentioned in the previous post, I am reading Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. I have found that the letters offer great insight into the human mind as well as the spiritual battle for our souls.

Screwtape, a demon writing to his nephew, writes that the "Enemy" (many things in the book are somewhat "backwards" in the book because it is from the perspective of evil - from this perspective, the Enemy is God) has created in the human mind a desire for monotony which co-exists with another God-given desire for change, which must be held in some sort of balance.

Often, we exaggerate the need for one or the other in order to serve our purposes.

The book gives an example of how evil uses the desire for change to distract humans from what is important, by creating fads and vogue which call for us to utilize our resources on fitting in, which is also related to materialism.

Anyway, along with these ideas, one thing that stuck out to me is that it said, "For the descriptive adjective 'unchanged' we have substituted the emotional adjective 'stagnant'(Lewis)." Again, this is from the perspective of a demon, saying that evil forces have affected society in this way.

I think I am so often caught up in a need for change that I don't realize the value of the present, which leaves me unable to do anything useful, namely praise God, serve others, etc. This coincides with a broader understanding that if we are focused on ourselves and what we need to do or on the future and what we want to happen or even what God might have in store, we are not focused on what God desires for the present.

In conclusion, I really appreciate this book and recommend it highly.