A Question of Coasters

I traveled on a ministry team this past summer for my college, which took me all over the New England states.  One of the best days of the trip was when we as a team got to go to Six Flags over New England.  I'm a huge fan of roller coasters, so a day at the amusement park seemed like a sweet deal.  

There were two coasters that stick out in my mind.  They were right next to each other in the park, so they were hard to miss.  One was called the Catwoman's Whip.  It was a small, kiddie coaster.  The fastest speed was maybe 25 mph, and it couldn't have been over 20 feet tall.  No loops, no huge drops, just a tame little coaster.  

Next to it was the Superman: Ride of Steel.  With it's 221 foot initial drop and speeds of up to 77 mph, it promised to be the ride of a lifetime.  But here was the dilemma: the line for the Superman was nearly an hour, while the Catwoman's Whip had no one in line.  If you had the choice of only one, which would you choose?

If you're smart (like our team was) you would choose the wait and the bigger thrill of the Superman.  Now, I understand we were there the whole day and we really didn't have to decide between one or the other.  We rode both.  Actually we rode the Catwoman's Whip more times for the sake of our leader who wouldn't go near the Superman with a pole the length of Texas.  

But recently I've realized that my life is like that choice, the exclusive choice of one or the other coaster.  Only I'm not choosing roller coasters, I'm choosing pleasures.

Everyday, I have a choice in front of me to please myself or please God.  That's obvious from the Bible.  Every temptation I face is a choice between pleasures--the pleasures of here and now vs. the pleasures of then and there.  A choice to be satisfied immediately or to be satisfied ultimately.

Hebrews 11 tells us that sin is pleasurable, only for period of time, but the pleasure of it cannot be denied.  And God intends pleasure for us.  That can't be denied either.  Psalm 16:11 promises "pleasures forevermore," to those in Christ.  Which, if you compare the two pleasures here, pleasures forevermore seems a lot more attractive than pleasures that last only for a period of time.  So why do I choose the Catwoman's Whip pleasures over the Superman: Ride of Steel pleasures?  Why do I do my own thing and not God's?

I think I don't really understand pleasures forever more.  I don't get it.  I can't comprehend what God really has in store for me.  I've never experienced that kind of joy and satisfaction.  I can't.  I live in a "shadowland" (as C.S. Lewis called the world).  Everything that I experience is but a shadow, a shade of the real thing.  And since I can't comprehend the pleasure God intends for me, I am satisfied (to use C.S. Lewis's description) with making mud pies in the slums because I can't imagine a holiday at the sea.

I've lived my life in the interior of the U.S.  First, Illinois, then the dry and landlocked Colorado.  There's pictures of me at the beach at South Padre Island when I was 3ish, but I don't remember going.  It wasn't until high school, on a college trip to Florida, that I experienced the beach again.  Until then, I couldn't imagine what it was like.  The smell of the salt air, the sound of the waves, the cool sand molding it's way around my feet.  I'd never experienced it, so I couldn't imagine the pleasure there.  I had to go on what others said.  And when I went, I went with an excitement based on what they told me.

Just because we've never experienced the joy and pleasure God intends for us, doesn't mean I shouldn't be choosing it.  I have, on the best authority (a being Who cannot lie), promises that what waits for those who deny the temporary but immediate pleasures of this world far surpasses anything I can imagine.

So I will choose to wait.  Maybe it seems like I'm being ascetic and monastic to deny myself pleasures here and now.  But if that denial gains me pleasure that I can't imagine later on, it seems to me to be the better option.  I'll give up the Catwoman's Whip for the Superman: Ride of Steel, no matter what the wait.

Screwtape Writes Again

My dear Crimptongue,

I'm sorry now for the advice to get your subject involved in his friends' theological discussion.  Many of the underlings who are working with the friends found those discussions to be especially helpful in producing intellectual pride and disdain for others' lesser education.  But your subject took the discussion entirely the wrong way.  He applied them.  You shouldn't have let that happen.

Your delight over your subject's apparent despair over his inability to become better was quite evident in your last letter.  I think you are misunderstanding the situation.  Despair is a tool of the Enemy's.  It is one step from where the Enemy is trying to take the human.  His goal is to bring the human to Complete Despair, where the subject has no other option but to accept the offer of help.  Despair is not a good place for your subject to be.

On the other hand, he is not wholly lost.  He is still one step away and you can keep him from turning to Complete Despair by nudging him into Discouragement or Doubt, both of which are fully ours.  Allow him to begin to think along these lines and you will have taken the fool a step closer to a meeting with us.  There are several tricks you can try to bring the subject around to our side.

One especially helpful trick is the idea of addiction.  We have worked very hard with some of our more useful humans to make addiction seem like a disease with no cure.  Of course it is not, but if the human believes this, then like a cancer patient, there is no hope for the subject.  Let him be convinced he is addicted to his television shows, his music and his Internet.  Let him think he cannot live without it.  Once he is convinced of this, he will slip from Despair to Discouragement, thinking there is no hope for him.  That is where we want him.

Another helpful idea is to remind the subject of his many failures.  Let him think of the many times he's made vows to change and failed mere days later.  Let those be the ideas that dwell in his mind.  The more he dwells on those ideas, the more Doubt will begin to creep into his mind.  He will doubt the Enemy's power to "save" him; He will doubt the "change" in his life; He will doubt his own worthiness to live.

The key to turning Despair into Doubt or Discouragement is simple.  Turn the subject's thoughts away from the power the Enemy offers him.  And the thoughts are most easily turned toward the subject himself.  Let him dwell on the consequences to his quality of living, on the changes to his habits of life, on his own inability to change.  The more you can make the subject dwell on himself, the quicker and easier it will be for you to turn his Despair into Discouragement and Doubt.  Those are the things that will bring him back into our hands.

I look forward to hearing of your progress.  Until next time.

Your affectionate uncle,

Screwtape

The Foundation of Rebellion

I've been reading through the Bible this year.  I'm not as good about it as I ought to be, though and am only in the middle of Numbers so far.  But the big story of Israel's deliverance and wanderings in the wilderness is one of my favorites so lingering there isn't too much of a problem.  I have been confused about one thing this year though.  Early this year, a missionary came to our church and preached out of Exodus 3 and 4 about Moses' experience at the burning bush.  He pointed out an interesting phenomenon.  God didn't strike Moses dead, or even get upset at him, when the cowardly shepherd offered his many excuses to God's call on his life.  God actually had an answer for every objection Moses offered!  He patiently and loving reminded Moses of His own power and sovereignty.  But then Moses turned from excuses to refusal.  He told God straight up, "I won't do it!"  Then God got angry.  That's a pattern that holds true throughout the story of Israel.  God did not deal with them until they outright refused to do as He said.

So the question that came to my mind was "Why?".  Why does God get angry merely at rebellion and not at excuses?  Why does He poured down wrath on people who who refuse His plan and complain about His goodness?  Why doesn't He do the same to those who question their ability to do these thing?  Shouldn't we silently and stoically obey all the commands that are given to us, without question?  I think the key to all these questions is in Numbers 20.

Numbers 20 is a familiar story as well.  Israel has been wondering for several years at this point, having refused to enter the Promised Land when God initially told them to.  Thousands of them have died for their rebellion (again, God punishing for outright refusal).  And now they are thirsty and without water.  In response, God tells Moses to speak to a rock and water will come out for the people to drink.  But Moses doesn't speak to the rock; he hits it--twice.  And God's response to Moses' rebellion is interesting.  He doesn't chide Moses for his anger, his disobedience, or his words.  He tells Moses there is punishment coming "because [he] did not believe."  His disobedience was founded on unbelief.

God answers our excuses because He understands that our excuses are based on a misunderstanding, or even lack of understanding, of who He is.  We don't get it.  We don't know His character.  So He takes those opportunities to teach us about who He is.  Then the choice is ours: to believe or not.  If we choose to believe God is who He says He is, then we will obey, trusting His character to accomplish an end we feel is impossible.  But if we choose to disobey, we are showing that we really don't believe God is who He says He is.  We are calling God a liar.  That's why rebellion makes God so angry.  

And the moment we fail to believe in God's character, He forbids our entry into the Promised Land.  The moment we choose that we are more right than God, He sentences us to years of wandering in a joyless, powerless wilderness.  But the moment we believe our God is true, that He cannot lie, that what He says is so, all the peace and riches of the Promised Land are ours to enjoy.

Further Up and Further In

I just finished listening to Focus on the Family's radio theater dramatization of The Chronicles of Narnia.  I absolutely love the series of books and this was a new and fresh way to enjoy them.  Of the seven books, my favorites are The Horse and His Boy and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  But as I was listening to the end of The Last Battle today, I could hardly keep from crying.  All I could think about was the beauty that was heaven in this story book world, and how much more grand and glorious is will be.

One of the most moving things about Aslan's mountains in The Last Battle is the number of characters you run into that you fell in love with in the previous books.  Diggory and Polly get to meet Fledge and King Frank again.  Lucy is reunited with her good friend, Mr. Tumnus.  Peter and Edmund run into the Beavers.  Eustace and Jill reconnect with Puddleglum and Prince Rilian.  All the people who were special to us and to them--Reepicheep, Jewel, Puzzle, Caspian, Drinian, Ramandu's daughter, Trumpkin and Trufflehunter--are there.  To someone like Tirian, the last king of Narnia, many of these are merely heroes he's never met, names he's heard from the old tales.  But then he meets his own father.  How amazing will it be to get to heaven and enjoy the company of so many heroes who have gone before us.  And not only them, but also the loved ones who are waiting to see us again.

Another thing Lewis brings out is the realness of heaven compared to our own world.  In fact Aslan refers to our world as the "shadowlands."  Polly tries to explain it as if you were seeing a beautiful view in a mirror rather than seeing it with your own eyes.  The real view is much deeper, much more vivid, more alive.  Everything in the new Narnia is bigger and better than it was before.  It's the real country, while what we have here is but a shade of them.  How that ought to make us long for heaven and its realness!

But the most exciting thing about new Narnia is the absolute pleasure of being there.  None of the animals or people are sad.  Everything is a thrill.  Everything is fresh.  Everything is new.  Everytime you turn around there is a new delight to see and experience.  And the further up and further in you go, nearer to the heart of Aslan himself, the more exciting and pleasurable it gets.  And why is it so pleasurable?  Because that is the land that for which we are made!  Nothing here will satisfy us.  Nothing on this earth fulfills us.  But in heaven there is "fullness of joy" (ps. 16:11)  Joy that cannot be topped, cannot be added to.  In heaven there are "pleasures forever more" (ps. 16:11).  Pleasure beyond our wildest imaginations that will not stop!  How amazing is that!

All this pleasure, joy, awe and grandeur is caught up in one quote uttered by Aslan himself.  Something I hope to hear God say one day: "The term is over: the holidays have begun.  The dream is ended: this is the morning."  I can't wait for that day!