# “He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them” by C.S. Lewis

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2020/03/23/he-wants-men-to-be-concerned-with-what-they-do-our-business-is-to-keep-them-thinking-about-what-will-happen-to-them-by-c-s-lewis/
- Published: 2020-03-23T13:00:12-05:00
- Author: tollelege

“My Dear Wormwood,

I am delighted to hear that your patient’s age and profession make it possible, 
but by no means certain, that he will be called up for military service. We want
him to be in the maximum uncertainty, so that his mind will be filled with contradictory
pictures of the future, every one of which arouses hope or fear.

There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human’s mind against
the Enemy. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep
them thinking about what will happen to them.

Your patient will, of course, have picked up the notion that he must submit with
patience to the Enemy’s will. What the enemy means by this is primarily that he 
should accept with patience the tribulation which has actually been dealt out to
him– the present anxiety and suspense.

It is about _this_ that he is to say “Thy will be done”, and for the daily task 
of bearing _this_ that the daily bread will be provided. It is your business to 
see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross, but
only of the things he is afraid of.

Let him regard them as his crosses: let him forget that, since they are incompatible,
they cannot all happen to him, and let him try to practice fortitude and patience
to them all in advance.

For real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical 
fates, is almost impossible, and the Enemy does not greatly assist those who are
trying to attain it: resignation to present and actual suffering, even where that
suffering consists of fear, is far easier and is usually helped by this direct action.”

–C.S. Lewis, “Letter VI,” _[The Screwtape Letters](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060652934?tag=toletaupanre-20)_(
New York: Macmillian, 1950), 34-35.

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