A few days ago, a friend and I set off in a little white car from Lynchburg, Virginia, to make the nearly 20-hour trek to Wausau, Wisconsin for Christmas break. It was exhilarating, to be sure. But more than that, the numerous quiet hours stuck behind the wheel of a car, listening to the steady hum of the engine and bemusedly watching my weary travel companion attempt to sleep in the seat beside me, provided a much-appreciated opportunity to think.

It has often seemed to me that the human existence is somewhat cyclical with regard to the emotional states an individual passes through. There are seasons in life when it feels like the heavens are silent, like God has hidden Himself, like the answers which we so desperately seek are nowhere to be found, and furthermore, like no one particularly cares--that we are abandoned to struggle absolutely alone through the moments of our greatest necessity and despair. (Granted, this sensation is just a feeling, but for the vast majority of humanity, feelings are, in that particular moment, their reality).

There are also seasons when one feels that the sun, the moon, and the stars have all propitiously aligned, that the world is only beautiful, and never horrifying, that God is particularly close, that His love is exceptionally real, that the answers to life’s deepest and most critical questions are within reach, that humanity beams upon us with affection and approbation…in short, that all is right with the world.

I have come to realize, over the course of several years and many conversations, that this sequential ebb and flow of the emotional tides is not unique to me—rather, it seems to characterize the vast majority of human kind to a greater or lesser degree, especially in our spiritual walks. And I begin to suspect that this is by design.

After all, the facts—the foundational truths upon which our worldview and our lives are constructed—don’t change. Our circumstances might, and our feelings definitely will, but if we act based upon the Biblical truth that we know, and allow what we know to rule our feelings, this creates an emotional maturity and stability that creates a solid foundation for the building of a robust character…

These were the thoughts that were spinning around behind my eyeballs as I drove through the long hours of a frigid winter night…and somewhere around hour twelve of the trip, I was reminded of a passage from The Screwtape Letters in which Lewis offered some characteristically perspicacious insight into the matter. This captures the perspective of a demon writing to his nephew, Screwtape, with some words of advice regarding the best ways in which to destroy the human soul:

“You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish.

It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best…He cannot “tempt” to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there, He is pleased even with their stumbles.

Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks around upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken…and still obeys.” –Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis (p. 39)