Psalm 133 – Subtle Saturday Setbacks for Screwtape's Kind
Screwtape suffered a defeat in my kitchen an hour or so ago. More accurately, the principles espoused by CS Lewis's fictional demon were undermined in what began as a normal conversation. I'm hoping you can help me count the ways in which the demons were flummoxed and the Kingdom of God advanced in a subtly sanctified Saturday.
Where the patriarchs built an altar in order to prompt memories, gratitude, and questions from passersby, I write a blog in the same spirit. Plus, I'm trying to come out from behind my tendency to insistently quote somebody else. It builds more faith to share what God is doing in my sphere, usually little by little, because individual events are not as dramatic as those publishers will invest to put into print.
I come back from Saturday morning Bible study face aglow in exposition mode. I want to share what I taught and what God is doing. Although my wife is prioritizing putting away the groceries and other Saturday chores, it worked this time. I disciplined my baubling to three quick points and checked in after each of them.
She, in turn, kept up both her efficient movements and the affirmation she was listening. I know because she made a positive, corrective suggestion that included a perspective I hadn't thought of before. In fact, she, usually reserved, spoke up for someone who was even less likely to speak up. It's good that the Bible study might grow, she said, based on your additional invitations, but are you sure the guy already coming would continue to thrive?
My fallback response when pride isn't on the throne to project immediate defensiveness is indecision covered by spiritual verbiage. I'll pray about it, I said. And I think I would have. My tuned in prophetess had a better idea. Why don't you just ask him? Her direct, calm, and kindly question, alas, exposed another one of my idols. I don't go first to the possibility of such direct encounters. I fear the fissure they might expose.
Plus, such rare attempts that candid conversation get in the way of my futile attempts at omniscience. I'm a reader, writer, and a counselor. I can sometimes intuit correctly. The occasions when I do, though, warp my perspective. Is the batting average of my assumptions really that high? More to the point than whether my batting average is higher than the average person's, are my inspired but erratic assumptions more solid than what someone would come right out and tell me if I asked?
My listening wife as tuned in prophetess wasn't finished. She reinforced her combination of affirmation and advocacy by focusing my attention which she knows can wonder instantly from enthusiasm to distraction : If I were you, she said with sage gentleness, I would text him right now. What's more, she blessed my budding Bible study with the especially reserved guy she has never met by stocking the refrigerator with his favorite beverage, a namebrand we typically would not buy.
First to the Scripture, which tells us in Psalm 133 it is blessed when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity. It's not that unity is that unusual. It's that, if the inspired analogy for it is oil running down Aaron's beard and his garments, two folding humans complementing each other's enthusiasm and weakness to be equally yoked is worth bursting the boundaries of the usual. It's worth making a mess in Psalm 133. It's worth blogging about, especially when the overly expressive writer's more reticent wife gives her unqualified blessing.
As for Screwtape's grumbling on principle and then blaming his nephew, let me count some of the ways and hope that I have engaged your interest enough that if you speak Screwtape, speak marriage, or like to join in the momentum of little ministry victories, you will pile on and comment.
Screwtape mentions how the demons need to capitalize on the human tendency to assume the other person knows what we mean and what we want and is deliberately evading both. By thinking of my attempt at exposition from my busy listening wife's perspective for once, I made it easier for her to follow three points instead of having to chase my meaning while preparing our meals for the week ahead. By delivering, as best I could, what I thought would edify her in a focused format, I didn't get to shortcut to the assumption that she didn't want to listen. Not that I've ever done that before, but…
We also inverted his principle of the spiritual meaning of small things. For him, trying to get the family under attack to agree on a simple recreational plan is fuel for demonic glee. By contrast, just a little step out of our usual purchasing habits to make a new friend feel most comfortable in Christ's Name I take as a seriously sanctified use of sugar water.
With her timely counterpoint that I needed to consider things from the perspective of the person I was trying to help by asking how best to help him, my wife also stalled a Screwtape tactic. He wanted to get each party in the courtship assuming that they were lowering or inconveniencing themselves for the sake of the other and would eventually be acknowledged for this selfless gallantry. A timely and clear question of, does this help or does this hurt our relationship is much healthier.
My wife's sharpening from my vague intention toward action on a definite, manageable timeline was so packed with anti-Screwtape precision one could hardly believe that she didn't get it from the text. He tells his nephew to have human "patients" push our aspirations for doing good toward some indefinite future while we pull our efforts at self-gratification closer. My, "I'll pray about it," would not have disturbed him nearly so much as God's use of my marriage to focus me on what I could do faithfully right now.
Now, if when I actually do pray with my wife, I can yawp with genuine, reverberating enthusiasm for God's victories in what you probably still sees as an ordinary conversation, so much the better for us, and so much the worse for future intentions like Screwtape's.
Where the patriarchs built an altar in order to prompt memories, gratitude, and questions from passersby, I write a blog in the same spirit. Plus, I'm trying to come out from behind my tendency to insistently quote somebody else. It builds more faith to share what God is doing in my sphere, usually little by little, because individual events are not as dramatic as those publishers will invest to put into print.
I come back from Saturday morning Bible study face aglow in exposition mode. I want to share what I taught and what God is doing. Although my wife is prioritizing putting away the groceries and other Saturday chores, it worked this time. I disciplined my baubling to three quick points and checked in after each of them.
She, in turn, kept up both her efficient movements and the affirmation she was listening. I know because she made a positive, corrective suggestion that included a perspective I hadn't thought of before. In fact, she, usually reserved, spoke up for someone who was even less likely to speak up. It's good that the Bible study might grow, she said, based on your additional invitations, but are you sure the guy already coming would continue to thrive?
My fallback response when pride isn't on the throne to project immediate defensiveness is indecision covered by spiritual verbiage. I'll pray about it, I said. And I think I would have. My tuned in prophetess had a better idea. Why don't you just ask him? Her direct, calm, and kindly question, alas, exposed another one of my idols. I don't go first to the possibility of such direct encounters. I fear the fissure they might expose.
Plus, such rare attempts that candid conversation get in the way of my futile attempts at omniscience. I'm a reader, writer, and a counselor. I can sometimes intuit correctly. The occasions when I do, though, warp my perspective. Is the batting average of my assumptions really that high? More to the point than whether my batting average is higher than the average person's, are my inspired but erratic assumptions more solid than what someone would come right out and tell me if I asked?
My listening wife as tuned in prophetess wasn't finished. She reinforced her combination of affirmation and advocacy by focusing my attention which she knows can wonder instantly from enthusiasm to distraction : If I were you, she said with sage gentleness, I would text him right now. What's more, she blessed my budding Bible study with the especially reserved guy she has never met by stocking the refrigerator with his favorite beverage, a namebrand we typically would not buy.
First to the Scripture, which tells us in Psalm 133 it is blessed when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity. It's not that unity is that unusual. It's that, if the inspired analogy for it is oil running down Aaron's beard and his garments, two folding humans complementing each other's enthusiasm and weakness to be equally yoked is worth bursting the boundaries of the usual. It's worth making a mess in Psalm 133. It's worth blogging about, especially when the overly expressive writer's more reticent wife gives her unqualified blessing.
As for Screwtape's grumbling on principle and then blaming his nephew, let me count some of the ways and hope that I have engaged your interest enough that if you speak Screwtape, speak marriage, or like to join in the momentum of little ministry victories, you will pile on and comment.
Screwtape mentions how the demons need to capitalize on the human tendency to assume the other person knows what we mean and what we want and is deliberately evading both. By thinking of my attempt at exposition from my busy listening wife's perspective for once, I made it easier for her to follow three points instead of having to chase my meaning while preparing our meals for the week ahead. By delivering, as best I could, what I thought would edify her in a focused format, I didn't get to shortcut to the assumption that she didn't want to listen. Not that I've ever done that before, but…
We also inverted his principle of the spiritual meaning of small things. For him, trying to get the family under attack to agree on a simple recreational plan is fuel for demonic glee. By contrast, just a little step out of our usual purchasing habits to make a new friend feel most comfortable in Christ's Name I take as a seriously sanctified use of sugar water.
With her timely counterpoint that I needed to consider things from the perspective of the person I was trying to help by asking how best to help him, my wife also stalled a Screwtape tactic. He wanted to get each party in the courtship assuming that they were lowering or inconveniencing themselves for the sake of the other and would eventually be acknowledged for this selfless gallantry. A timely and clear question of, does this help or does this hurt our relationship is much healthier.
My wife's sharpening from my vague intention toward action on a definite, manageable timeline was so packed with anti-Screwtape precision one could hardly believe that she didn't get it from the text. He tells his nephew to have human "patients" push our aspirations for doing good toward some indefinite future while we pull our efforts at self-gratification closer. My, "I'll pray about it," would not have disturbed him nearly so much as God's use of my marriage to focus me on what I could do faithfully right now.
Now, if when I actually do pray with my wife, I can yawp with genuine, reverberating enthusiasm for God's victories in what you probably still sees as an ordinary conversation, so much the better for us, and so much the worse for future intentions like Screwtape's.
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