today...

So I've read two and a 3/4 books so far. The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters (and Screwtape proposes a toast), and did a history major type of reading(meaning i read for the main points) of a wilderness book my mom gave me. Really good stuff. I think The Great Divorce might be up there as one of my favorites. I finished Screwtape this morning and loved a lot of the stuff in it. Lewis is the man! There was one section that just hit home with me so much.

For those of you who haven't read it, the Screwtape letters is a collection of letters from one devil to another. The "Enemy" is God to Screwtape.

"My Dear Wormwood,
I am delighted to hear that your patient's age and profession make it possible, but by no means certain, that he will be called up for military service. 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. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.

Your patient will, of course, have picked up the notion that he must submit with patience to the Enemy's will. What the Enemy means by this is primarily that he should accept with patience the tribulation which has actually been dealt out to him--the present anxiety and suspense. It is about this that he is to say "Thy will be done", and for the daily task of bearing this that the daily bread will be provided. It is your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross but only of the things he is afraid of. Let him regard them as his crosses: let him forget that, since they are incompatible, they cannot all happen to him, and let him try to practise fortitude and patience to them all in advance. For real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical fates, is almost impossible, and the Enemy does not greatly assist those who are trying to attain it: resignation to present and actual suffering, even where that suffering consists of fear is far easier and is usually helped by this direct action."

The Screwtape Letters
-C.S. Lewis

Now's one of those times when it's easy for me to worry about the future. Sometimes it isn't easy to say "Thy will be done." It means that I have to admit defeat. It means that I can't figure it out anymore.

It means that He's in control and I'm not.

Hard pill to swallow. A big pride shot. It's so funny that it always seems so difficult. Even though he's always proven himself faithful. I spent the whole freaking semester in Joshua...God's faithfulness is like a huge theme. I guess it didn't register with me very well lol. The truth remains. He is faithful. He always has been. He always will be.

These words are so easy to type but so difficult to digest sometimes. When everything just seems hopeless, out of control, spinning around and moving every which way, the last thing i want to do is focus on something or someone other than myself. But it's in those times, as Screwtape points out, that all we have to do is just let go and say "Thy will be done."

Letting go...Living on faith and trusting that He knows what He is doing. I need these things...

i loved this book and am very much enjoying the works of CS Lewis.


In other news...it's cold up here. Snow is everywhere and it is quite beautiful. My days have consisted of sleeping in, guitar playing, basketball playing, reading, eating and watching my sister play basketball.

Learning a lot about myself and am thinking about what it means to trust Him with my life...my present and future. I miss you guys a lot but i am enjoying some time away from the busy work of school. I am waiting in expectation for a blog about Jeff's Christmas party! someone do it!

have a good one guys :)
-dave