“Remember, he is not, like you, a pure spirit. Never having been a human (Oh that abominable advantage of the Enemy’s!) you don’t realise how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary. I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy, of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years’ work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defence by argument I should have been undone.
But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. The Enemy presumably made the counter-suggestion (you know how one can never quite overhear what He says to them?) that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been His line for when I said ‘Quite. In fact much too important to tackle at the end of a morning,’ the patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I had added ‘Much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind,’ he was already half way to the door.
Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a No. 73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man’s head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of ‘real life’ (by which he meant the bus and the newsboy) was enough to show him that all ‘that sort of thing’ just couldn’t be true. You begin to see the point? Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things.”
– C.S Lewis, “The Screwtape Letters”
A friend has quoted a few times recently from C.S Lewis’ “Screwtape Letters”. I hadn’t read them in six or seven years, so decided to crack out my copy again and see what wisdom there was to glean from these short chapters. The excerpt above (from the opening chapter) was enough to remind me just how astute Lewis was. There is a temptation in me to provide commentary on what he’s written, but I will restrain my hand, and let his creative work speak for itself, lest I inadvertently undermine its potency through raw statements.
Nonetheless, as I mused over this chapter, and considered the truth held therein, I was struck by how the Lord is not unaware of such tactics. He also warns us not to be unaware either:
“…so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs”
– 2 Cor 2:11
So how can we be informed rather than ignorant in this case? Well, we need to have our horizons broadened. We need wider vision. And in today’s world we have so many things that promise us greater insight. Radio, TV, internet, or just the many pulls of being out and about in daily life.
Yet, in one sense, we do not broaden our horizons by going out into the world, but by forcing ourselves to “stay in”. Yes, there are some who are stuck in their study all day long, who need to get out and see how living out the Bible looks on a daily basis. Yes, there is great benefit of experiencing God’s works in nature, the joy of different cultures, the love of people. In a certain context, these are excellent ways to broaden the mind and cause a holy imagination to grow in us. But in a very real sense, the greater need is the discipline to “stay in”.
The mundane can be sacred to God. The routine daily tasks, done for his glory, are worthwhile. I will celebrate that fact til the day I die. Not every day needs to be “spectacular”. Amen.
Nonetheless, in my experience, certainly in Ireland, the need at the moment is something akin to what Lewis speaks of. The danger of “the ordinary” drowning out the glory of the greater calling we have as a kingdom of priests, as children of God, as those renewed in the image of him who created us!
(There, I got carried away already into commentary… blogging is hard. Back to the main point now.)
How do we battle this? I believe that the need of the western church today, and of individuals therein also, is to pick up Christian disciplines and practice them. We fear legalism, we wonder about practices that we’ve never done before… but at the end of the day, they are God-ordained means of grace, that are frontline weapons against the attack Lewis lays out above.
Silence, solitude, prayer, fasting, Christian meditation, Scripture memorisation. These all seem contradictory to expanding our vision. They are tasks that draw us away from many experiences, many places we can see God’s glory and understanding of his work. Yet, to allow ourselves only time in “the ordinary” leaves us suddenly finding that our attention is on anything but the glory, will, and purposes of God. The spiritual disciplines force the mind into a narrow train of thought, that is focused and engaged, but this is in order to expand our vision of God. It is in the secret place that we gain the clarity of thought that allows us to then engage with the world in a focused way and resist it’s many distractions. It is through practice of these disciplines that the ordinary becomes infused with glory and takes on purpose rather than monotony.
Is your faith struggling in the everyday things? There is no magic formula, but God has given means to grow us. The spiritual disciplines draw the mind and heart back to eternal realities, when the ordinariness of life numbs us to the glorious calling that is ours now, and the inheritance that awaits us.
I would suggest that anyone whose interest is piqued by Lewis, and my proposed solution (which I believe is just the Bible’s proposed solution), should invest in Donald S. Whitney’s excellent book on the spiritual disciplines (Link below, I don’t earn anything from it, just the satisfaction of knowing that this excellent book is in more hands!). I have given away many copies of it, and it is an incredibly easy read, with very practical application.
Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life: https://amzn.eu/d/6cTvkv4
Imitators of Those 
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