Letter 20

It is in my option the number one thing that the devil distorts in peoples lives. He takes something that is beautiful, amazing, unifying, and that produces a connection between two people that is unmatched in any other relationship and he distorts it…

and distorts is probably too kind of a word.

He convinces people things are ok to look at that are not ok to look at. Things that infuse lustful desires, things that change the purity of sex into a show which produces unrealistic expectations in the real world. The devil plays on the lustful heart and draws and pushes people to view deeper, darker sexual acts and with each view people are left with wanting more, seeking out something new. Their minds change, their character becomes darker and their way of looking at the world becomes more lustful instead of pure. Reality is altered and they eventually see things that are abnormal (according to God and His word) as normal.

He squeezes the beauty out of one of the most important human acts.

He convinces people to hold back from giving themselves to the person they have married. They feel justified because they are upset, or they “feel” like they married the wrong person, or they didn’t get their way, or its not as exciting as it once was and they no longer put the energy toward it. This opens the door wide for attraction to happen with others and for adultery to occur BUT it’s not a simple as that, it also opens the door for other temptations like the ones listed in the first paragraph above. Anger, frustration, dissatisfaction enter into the marriage at a higher temperature when holding back occurs. It also sets sex up as a payment for being good which is a horrible thought… That’s basically marriage prostitution. If your good then we will, if you don’t give me what I want (you are bad) then we will not. Holding back seems to be the right thing to do but in the end its really the Devil’s deception making you think it is right. An in your “thinking its right” you cause more damage that you can comprehend while you are blinded this way.

After all…

he loves to squeeze the beauty out of it.

Then there is the pull not to wait until you are married to participate.

So…

I’m sitting here at 10:46pm having started this blog this morning (what you see written above) and I’m nowhere close to being done. In fact as I have contemplated all day the different scenarios I could write that are similar to the ones above but different, I realize it could be a chapter in a book by the time I would finish.

That said…

We often think it is the worst case scenarios we need to avoid when it comes to sexual temptation. But that is the big lie. The fact of the matter is its the small doses that hurt us more than the extremes. In fact most people live with the low doses and do not even realize how deceived they are. “It was just a short clip in a movie.” “They really didn’t show anything”.. and so on. Each view chips away at not only our purity but also creates over time an unhealthy view of intimacy. We become use to the less pure and began to think we are still pure and unaffected.

That just isn’t the case…

If there is any take away from these Screwtape Letters it needs to be the topic of Letter 20. Our marriages depend on it….

well… if you want to have a marriage that is pure…