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The Trough and The Peak

My sister and I were talking about the ups and downs of life.  The seasons.  The drought and famine.  The floods.  The plodding.  

C.S. Lewis in his book, Screwtape Letters, describes the work that God does in the trough times through his portrayal of human life from two demons point of view.  Temptation and Triumph!  Very relevant to me today!

"Humans are Amphibians! Half spirit and half animal.  As spirits they 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." Screwtape Letters C.S.Lewis 38

Speaking about the enemy, Wormwood is told to "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 on the peaks..."

Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, 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 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.  

Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best." 40




Lewis, C.S.  Screwtape Letters. HarperCollins Publishing 1996

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