“By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. And since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the impossible.”
Last night, my wife and I attended Legacy Christian School's performance of C.S. Lewis's 'Screwtape letters. I was so touched by the performance that at the end I stood up and gave this cast applause-it wasn't long before others stood as well.
For the sake of brevity, I found this clip that summarizes what this play was about. This play was set in the backdrop of England during a violent war that culminated in many nights of bombs dropping, lives lost, and overwhelming fear capturing the minds of the average British citizen alive at the time.
Every single day we are being bombarded by conflicting voices. Some of those voices are uttering 'lies' into our head and telling us how despicable you are, how you will never amount to much, and life isn't worth living.
Then here are the other voices, the ones that come from God- you are loved, you have been redeemed, you were worth the blood of Jesus Christ to die for you, with my help (God) you can overcome anything that the spiritual darkness dishes out.
Below that iceberg, we see the struggles, hurts, anxiety, and the fear that overwhelms that human condition. If we look closely, we will see humans ready to give up their faith when bad things happen to them.
Then there were the stories that flowed out from this production. When the production ended the cast stayed so the audience could ask questions. Midway through this this question and answer period I raised my hand and asked, "Can several of you share how this performance impacted your faith." To which, several people applauded. Several hands went from this cast, all of them wanted to share.
Then there was the story of one young man.
I learned last night that one young man had confessed that he was an atheist until that was just before the start of the first performance, he made a decision to accept Jesus into his heart. This same young man had shared with the school chaplain that he was giving Legacy one more year before deciding to throw all these faith things out the window. A few of them said that there were hours and hours of prayer that went into preparing for this play. One young man who played the part of the devil said that literally, each night equipment was breaking to the point that on the surface it was comical, but below the surface the knew that the devil did not want this play to go on because, in the end, God's redemptive story wins.
In the end, our faith and corresponding walk with Jesus Christ is like a journey that will no doubt be filled with good times and bad. Babies will be born and people will die, and when the latter enter our lives, our Savior Jesus is whispering assurances into our ear that remind us to trust that he knows what to do with your pain.
As C.S. Lewis reminds us in his timeless writing, this battle has been won because of what Jesus did on the cross/ He has gone to war on your behalf with the spiritual darkness and he has won this battle for you.
Those former voices you heard that discouraged you are now being replaced by the actual words of Jesus and the mighty prophets. They are your cheerleaders, rooting you on to the finish line of life.
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