The third book I have read in my 100 book challenge for this year was The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. It has been years since I last read this classic and I found that passages that I highlighted in years past were still pertinent to my spiritual growth. I also found numerous others that hit home or had relevance in some of my other projects on the go currently.
I love the following quote:
“No doubt he must very soon realize that his own faith is in direct opposition to the assumptions on which all the conversation of his new friends is based... All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be. ”
I cannot even fathom how much time I wasted in my youth trying to be liked or fit in with a group of people. In the end you end up losing your true self and sometimes it takes years to get back to that person. That quote provided some great journalling time.
I also found that the whole conversation about nothing in the book provided some great insight into a conversation I had this week at church. I kept coming back to those little moments in the day that just seem to disappear into the depths of YouTube videos and Google searches.
“Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is took weak and fuddled to shake off.”
This book is a classic and I wish I hadn't put it on my shelf for as long as I did. Here are a few questions that I had after reading this again:
What nothings are in your life and stealing away your time?
Who are you pretending to be and what are you running away from?
I would love to hear your thoughts on those two questions in the comments below.