No one knows who exactly said it first. But it has been uttered by many people including President Eisenhower. “There are no atheists in foxholes.” It is an idiom which seeks to suggest that in life threatening situations such as war everyone hope or cries out to some higher power, even if they do not in normal life situations. Screwtape tells Wormwood not to hope for too much from a war. As entertaining as wars are, often the suffering God allows humans to experience only fortifies them. When we are faced with our mortality, we have can either grow in our faith or fall away.
The real business that Wormwood is to be about the undermining faith and preventing the formation of virtues. Wormwood will have far greater opportunity for success in trying to get his patient to challenge his own Christian morals and values by using much more benign strategies and every day common activities.
It is the little things that get in the way of my faith. I committed to doing my devotions everyday and I came up with excuse after excuse. Little things, like – I will do my devotions in the morning… or I will catch up on my blogging over the weekend. I was substituting small things in place of my alone time with God.
I spent a lot of time preparing for my talk on software defined networking. I was nervous because I don’t have the same level of educational background of many of the people working for me and in other organizations. My self-talk was, I am not worthy. But, I was being distracted from the real story – with God all things are possible! Calm my nerves dear Lord… Lord forgive me for not reading my Bible like I should and keeping up with my blog entries like I committed. It is hard to hold others accountable when I am not walking the walk myself.
God uses suffering to purge sin from our lives and strengthen our commitment to him. Through this we will grow closer to Him and know Christ better. Our hope will also be revived and be based on what He an rather than anything in this world. Hopes based on anything worldly will ultimately fail us. As a result, our character will strengthen gaining wisdom and virtue.
I will praise him in the valley. I will claim Ps 23. Suffering is neither good nor bad in and of itself, but how we respond to suffering is what is important. Suffering can bring out great acts of self sacrifice and courage. Some people go through suffering and lose hope and get depressed. They focus on poor me. They fail to see how suffering is causing us to rely more on Christ. John 14, we have a home in Heaven… we have eternal hope… as long as we are walking with God, we can rest in His arms. He is my refuge and strength.
