“We want him to be in the maximum uncertainty, so that his mind will be filled with contradictory pictures of the future, every one of which arouses hope or fear. There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human’s mind against the Enemy [God]. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.”
-From The Screwtape Letters
When I was a kid, The Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus would make a stop at the old Richfield Coliseum outside of Cleveland every year. The former home of the Cleveland Cavaliers is a place that will forever be cemented in my memories. I remember seeing Michael Jordan score his career best—69 points—there in late March of 1990 with my childhood pals, Nolan and Sean.
Remarkably, the Cavs almost won despite his Herculean efforts. It was the greatest single game performance I have ever witnessed. Still, it is not the most memorable thing I recall from the old Coliseum—that belongs to witnessing the human cannonball launched from one end of the arena to the other while watching the world famous three-ring circus.
Loading up into the barrel of a cannon is a great analogy for what we do throughout our lives. At times we do so with trust, believing that we are on the correct trajectory and things will work out for the best because of the path we have chosen. Other times, we climb in and have no idea of how things will turn out.
Of course any number of things can go wrong, and the path we believed was the right one for ourselves doesn’t lead to the place we hoped it would. When this happens we sometimes try to force a path forward to make up for what didn’t happen and re-shape the trajectory—unrealistically expecting the same outcome. Anxiety and uncertainty usually pounce at this point.
C.S. Lewis understood this. Described as a book that Lewis took no pleasure in writing, The Screwtape Letters is a literary classic told in the form of 31 letters written by a senior demon known as, Screwtape, to his nephew, and aspiring demon, Wormwood, who is seeking advice on how to properly tempt a British man he refers to as his patient. The man, like many at the time, is living through the hell of World War Two.
While the book is clearly about free will and temptation, there are other simple lessons one can take from the correspondence between these two fictitious minions of Satan. C.S. Lewis gives us a lesson on the cause of our anxieties with two powerful lines from the sixth letter written from the elder demon to the younger one.
It is your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross but only the things he is afraid of.
Our lives can at times saturated with “what ifs.” They hang over our heads throughout our time here on Earth and eventually manifest themselves as fear. And while some of those fears are realized in life, many times they are best described by an acronym my father once shared with me—False Evidence Appearing Real. Wormwood is warned that the words “Thy will be done” are how God helps man cope with and eventually free himself from the fears and anxieties caused by the multitude of “what ifs.” It is trusting in God’s plan that breaks the captives’ fetters so to speak.
So fix his attention inward that he no longer looks beyond himself to see our enemy or his own neighbors.
A life of service to others is the key to overcoming our anxieties. It is tough for our younger generations to grasp this unfortunately as the empowerment and focus on self is so prevalent today and the main culprit responsible for adding fuel to these everyday anxieties. As I look at the people in my own life, it’s those who have embraced what my former high school calls a “man for others” attitude who seem to be the most content and at peace. These folks don’t fix their attention inward.
So maybe we just need to turn our focus away from ourselves and trust that God is leading us down the right path and that things will turn out as they were meant to. The purveyors of fear, like Screwtape and Wormwood, will always be present in this world, but that should never stop us from strapping on our helmets, climbing into cannon, and trusting once the fuse is lit, everything will turn out alright.
-Tommy O’Sionnach
Thank you! Enjoy the day 🙏🏻
Thanks Coach