Steal His Joy — Immobilize Him

Writers Note — This is the second piece i’m writing in the style of C.S. Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters”. The Screwtape Letters is a collection of fictional letters written from Screwtape (A senior Tempter) to Wormwood his Nephew teaching him how to more effectively do his work. This also contains part of the message of my book “The Fight For Joy”. You can find it here

My Dear Wormwood,

I was hopeful for some positive news when I saw your last letter considering it’s been a while since you wrote me and I imagined you were doing well, but same old Wormwood has not failed to embarrass me with the content of his letter. Some days I actually wonder if you went through school like you claimed because this question you asked is like the foundation of the tempter’s manual. How can you be confused and frustrated over how to immobilize your patient Dear Wormwood? Well Since I never want my name to be associated with disgrace, I would answer you dear Nephew and hope you do some revision studies after this.

Wormwood, there is a secret these ‘children of ‘God’’ our patients have failed to recognize through the ages — that Joy is their engine. It’s a very simple formula. When they are joyless — they are useless. They are just like their ‘father’ our enemy — driven by satisfaction and Joy. I think the biggest mistake the enemy made was not making these mortal beings completely like him because if they were like him in fullness, their joy would be complete like his but unfortunately their joys are only complete when they search for joy in him and choose to rest and be satisfied in him. This wormwood is where we start our chaos wrecking from. Its misfortunate that 2000 years after that cursed son died on Calvary and had that sorrow evoking showdown with us down here (your great great great great grandfather witnessed this and the sorrowful story has passed down the family generations), the sheep he came to save have failed to recognize as core this theorem and pass it down from generation to generation. Misfortunate for them but fortunate for us because it has become one of our greatest weapons.

What to do with your Patient? Send him on a quest of joy. Make good use of the smaller tempting spirits. Send him down many paths one by one or two at a time. Let him find joy in television and music and sports and food and career wins and in relationships with the other gender (or genders as their type has created — What an endangered species) and sex and anything else but God. The specifics I’ll leave to your creativity.

But your Patient loves the enemy! I saw littered in your letter. We are a cunning deceiving army and we deal with distortion. Let him find his joy in these things but at the base believe he is following God with all his heart, soul and might — It’s not hard. Convince him to watch soccer matches 3 nights in a week at the expense of evening devotions with his family but wake him up and encourage him to wear good church clothes on Sunday. Lead him to worshipping food and participating in gluttony without knowing it and cover it up with his service of baking the snacks for after worship services. Let the bottle start as pure recreation till he feels he can’t just live without taking a pint of alcohol but don’t tempt him on Saturday nights at first so he can be in best spirits on Sunday and participate in the Holy Communion. I won’t recommend it right away but eventually you can use the almighty deception of ‘improper’ sex which I referred to in my last letter. Lead him gradually down Dear Wormwood. Don’t speed the process. For all their folly, these ‘humans’ were created smart by the Enemy but they specialize in not seeing the obvious till it hits them from behind.

Do these gradually and your patient will find himself seeking joy in everything else but that cursed son the Christ. And the interesting part about this joy? Its ephemeral. He will know it is empty. When he begins to question and think, allow him to question and reason his way out a bit but just when he is on the verge of turning, induce a special dose of temptation that sends him back down — eventually he’ll get to a place of not trying and accepting his ‘new identity’.
Never let him get to that place where he makes a conscious effort to put his trust and hope and find his joy in communion with the enemy and reading his word and spending time with him with intentionality and reliance on that cursed Holy Spirit that roams our World. If he wanders that path without intentionality you can bend it to our purposes but when he recognizes that the battle is spiritual and clings to these disciplines with all his heart then you have lost Dear Wormwood.

Don’t fail me. Don’t fail our master.

Your Most Affectionate Uncle,

Screwtape