Re: Screwtape Letters

Wormwood is temping his "patient" by trying to get him in to small subtle sins. Through this, as the "meaningless" sins pile up the patient he is more and more afraid to bring them to God. He fears the pain that comes with confessing to God. As this fear builds up he will do anything to distract himself including staring vacantly, whatever it takes.

We all have our harmless sins, things we do daily and disregard their seemingly small consequences. As these mount up we get an overall sense of unholiness and fear to come before the Lord. We fear the pain that comes with letting things go and admitting our failures.

We become comfortable with ourselves and feel that we are still Christians in good standing because we haven't had any drastic changes in our faith walk, no major blunders. We're are lulled into a false sense of security a piousness. Deep in our core we know we are wrong though and thus fear prayer and sermons. Anything that may convict us of or wrongs.

So we avoid God through mundane activities wasting the best years of our life. Works like Screwtape letters help reveal the subtle ways that the devil works against us and how we can be so easily tempted.