I have been re-reading C.S. Lewis's classic The Screwtape Letters. It's a series of letters from Screwtape, a senior demon, to his junior nephew demon Wormwood on how best to tempt Wormwood's human "patient". Screwtape and Wormwood are basically the opposite of a guardian angels. They are - quite literally - hell's angels. And Screwtape is passing on the tricks of the trade.
Lewis's insight into the spiritual life was absolutely brilliant. In The Screwtape Letters Lewis has Screwtape reflecting on the ways Wormwood might seduce his subject into perdition through the most ordinary of events. Sin isn't always what we humans think. In fact, Screwtape suggests that it is actually beneficial to the forces of darkness that we humans stand guard against mortal temptation in order that our more venal sins can slip through the back door. "Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick," Screwtape writes. "Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. . ."
In one particularly vivid seen Screwtape tells of having once had as a patient an atheist, who while studying a book suddenly began to ponder spiritual questions. Fearing that he might be in danger of losing the patient to heaven, Screwtape acted fast through a gentle pang of hunger. Having been diverted away from the consideration of deeper, more eternal matters, the patient never turned back again.
Falling out of relationship with God is so seldom the result of one singularly grave or heinous sin. Really, its generally a lot more dull than that. It's one step at a time, one glance at a time, one simple diversion from which we never come back.
Counteract this: stop right now and center on God for a couple of minutes. Sing an old hymn. Pray for somebody you love. Pray for somebody you don't. Do this again for two minutes before the day is out. Repeat tomorrow.
Screwtape hates that!
