Skrewtape Letters Chapters 12-15

Chapter 15 was my favorite letter this time. It focuses on the Past, Present and Future. Skrewtape believes that we must “get them away from the eternal, and from the Present” from page 76. The Past has some value to them, but believes that the Future holds “fear, avarice, lust, and ambition” from page 76, all of which are characteristics that the Enemy does not favor. He goes on to say that the Enemy wants us to thing about the Future, but more so in thinking of their duty tomorrow.
I thought about this in my own life and felt a connection to the letter because I’m in a phase in my life that I’m looking forward to the future. Although I don’t necessarily believe everything Skewtape is saying because the characteristics he told about the Future can be seen in the Present sometimes too, which makes me feel a little better about myself. I think it’s good to prepare for the Future but to also live in the Present. One quote I liked that he stated was “the duty of planning the morrow’s work is today’s duty; though its material is borrowed form the Future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present” on page 77. I guess I liked the way he put that because I am living in the Present but just using the Future to decide what to do tomorrow.

Skrewtape Letters Chapters 8-11

These letters seemed a little more difficult to follow for me. I ended up like Chapter 9 the most though. It seemed like C.S. Lewis was talking about these temporary pleasures we seek when we are down; sex, drugs, alcohol. I really like when he said, "All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures..." on page 44. It's something to think about, these obstacles that He put here that we fall to when we our suffering from being down. It seems like the Devil gets excited when we fall into these pleasures because they are of wrong doing. God didn't inted sex to be random and not meaningful. Thus when we do have meaningless sex with many partners it's against what God meant.
"The mere word phase will very likely do the trick" on page 46 is another quote I found interesting. I liked that because we do go through phases. I understand that we go in and out of phases, but I don't believe it will as easy as he thinks it will to get them out of their religious phase for good.
Well I'm excited to see what else C.S. Lewis has to say!