“I have the right to do anything,” you say — but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything” — but I will not be mastered by anything. 1 Corinthians 6:12
“Now just as we pick out and exaggerate the pleasure of eating to produce gluttony, so we pick out this natural pleasantness of change and twist it into a demand for absolute novelty. This demand is entirely our workmanship. If we neglect our duty, men will be not only contented but transported by the mixed novelty and familiarity of snowdrops this January, sunrise this morning, plum pudding this Christmas. Children, until we have taught them better, will be perfectly happy with a seasonal round of games in which conkers succeed hopscotch as regularly as autumn follows summer. Only by our incessant efforts is the demand for infinite, or unrhythmical, change kept up.”
C.S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters: Letters from a Senior to a Junior Devil (Samizdat University Press) 50.
With these posts from Lewis, I am trying to shine light on the enemies tactics that eat our margin and hinder our generosity. In a phrase, he fosters “the demand for absolute novelty,”
He spreads the thinking that nothing we currently have is good enough. We need it to be bigger and better. Vacations are not elaborate or exotic enough. The clothing is not trendy enough.
You get the idea. It’s all part of his elaborate scheme. This leads all of us to spend resources we don’t have, to buy things we don’t need, and creates little space for generosity.
That’s why the rhythm of giving our first and best dismantles the “incessant efforts” of the evil one. Don’t let eating produce gluttony or increased demand to master you.
Plan your giving and avoid getting played. You’ve got this. God’s got you. And it’s going well in Central Asia. Keep praying for me, please.