TO MARY NEYLAN: On troughs; on believing as an intellectual assent and as a psychological state; the despair of overcoming chronic temptations; and on how God likes to be asked. Lewis discloses that, at the direction of Father Adams, he has shortened an ever-lengthening list of people for whom he was praying.

20 January 1942

Sorry you’re in a trough. I’m just emerging (at least I hope I am) from a long one myself. As for the difficulty of believing it is a trough, one wants to be careful about the word ‘believing’. We too often mean by it ‘having confidence or assurance as a psychological state’—as we have about the existence of furniture. But that comes and goes and by no means always accompanies intellectual assent, e.g. in learning to swim you believe, and even know intellectually that water will support you long before you feel any real confidence in the fact. I suppose the perfection of faith would make this confidence invariably proportionate to the assent.

In the meantime, as one has learnt to swim only by acting on the assent in the teeth of all instinctive conviction, so we shall proceed to faith only by acting as if we had it. Adapting a passage in the Imitation one can say ‘What would I do now if I had a full assurance that there was only a temporary trough’, and having got the answer, go and do it. I a man, therefore lazy: you a woman, therefore probably a fidget. So it may be good advice to you (though it would be bad to me) not even to try to do in the trough all you can do on the peak.

I have recently been advised by Fr. Adams to abbreviate a prayer for other people which was becoming so long (as my circle widens) as to be irksome. I have done so, but kept the longer one on two days a week. Result, that having ceased to be the rule and become a kind of extra, it ceases to be irksome and is often a delight. There is danger in making Christianity too much into a ‘Law’. Let yourself off something. Relax.

I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations. It is not serious provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience et cetera doesn’t get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the very sign of His presence.

The question about Sarah is why she wants not to have to ask the good one to make her good. Would it be right (I know so little about children) to point out to her that He likes being asked: and that if she could be good on her own, taking no notice of Him, that itself wouldn’t be good. But ten to one the 2 sticks were primarily a game. . .

Ransom is having a grand time on Venus at present.

From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume II
Compiled in Yours, Jack

The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume II: Family Letters 1905-1931. Copyright © 2004 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C. S. Lewis. Copyright © 2008 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Prophetic Word for Texas and America the Beautiful January 30, 2024

Prophetic Word for Texas and America the Beautiful

January 30, 2024

Respectfully Submitted

Barry Wunsch  

This past week, the Holy Spirit has been bringing remembrance to me this encounter I had in June of 2023 as I flew to Florida on a special assignment (see below word previously shared).

I was flying at 40,000 feet as we passed through Oklahoma into Texas, and there, from that place physically over Texas, I was taken into the Spirit into an encounter.

What I saw was very clear to me. The Lord has called Texas to lead America the beautiful into freedom! 

He has positioned Texas to stand against and take out the most evil powers, principalities and the evil regime that has had control over this great nation – America, the beautiful.

He has clearly given Texas the grit and inner fortitude that is required to get things done.

As I was praying through this again, He dropped a word to me as follows:

“Texas – as you take your stand for truth and righteousness, be assured, I will be with you!  continue reading >>>

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"Democracy" Defined

"What I AM about to bring upon the earth is unprecedented. Many will quake, but you will not, because I have told you about it ahead of time." ...

Dealing with Adversity

If we believe a true Christian ought not to experience adversity, then the moment our lives fall apart, so does our faith. We begin to question a fundamental issue: “Am I really a Christian? After all, if I were really following God, then this wouldn’t happen to me.”

Following this line of false thinking, we perceive adversity as God’s punishment for unknown sin. As if God is dropping hints from heaven with every tragedy or that he has deserted us somewhere along the way. How easy it would have been for Joseph to question his belief in God and to assume God was punishing him with every misfortune (see Genesis 37; 39–40). Instead, the Bible records his remarkably opposite attitude of faith.

Similarly, we can look to Jesus as the ultimate example to debunk the idea that bad things do not happen to good people. Isaiah prophesied centuries before that the Messiah would be “despised” and “rejected” and well-acquainted with sorrows (Isaiah 53:3). If Jesus’ life is the Christian ideal, an example in every way, then we must accept Jesus’ suffering as a part of God’s divine impartiality and learn how Jesus handled it. If we were to believe the claims that adversity is unfitting for a believer, then we must discount the examples of Moses, Hannah, Naomi, David, Job, Hosea, Jeremiah, Paul, Mary, John and countless others who experienced great adversity as believers.

The Bible is, above all, realistic in its approach to life. Life sometimes hurts and threatens to crush us beneath its weight. But life in the Spirit is about perseverance and peace in the midst of struggle, not the absence of struggle. To believe otherwise is to join the disillusioned throng who encounter life on its own terms and are unprepared for the blow.

Taken from Flourish: The NIV Bible for Women.