I’m really enjoying reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis to my 15 year old son. Last night we read something I want to share. In this satirical book, Screwtape is a senior demon giving advice to his nephew, Wormwood, about how to best tempt, distract and destroy the life of his human “patient” who has recently become a Christian.
“Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy’s ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy (God) has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable.”
It was great to talk with my son about this truth that God made all the pleasures!
Forty Books 