Peaks and Troughs

If we are at all honest with ourselves, we all know that life has its ups and downs. Its mountains and valleys. As C.S. Lewis refers to it in The Screwtape Letters, its peaks and troughs. Times of soaring joy – moments of bitter sorrow.

In The Screwtape Letters, the senior demon Screwtape warns his nephew Wormwood of these moments in the life of humanity. He tells Wormwood that if the “patient” is in a trough, Wormwood must do the opposite of what the “Enemy” (God Himself) would do.

“You mean bring him to a peak?” Wormwood asks. “But why? Isn’t it more useful to us when he is in a trough?”

“No!” Screwtape thunders. “When the patient is in a trough is when the Enemy does His greatest work. It is then the patient will turn to the Enemy and cleave to Him for help. This makes the patient’s dependence and love for the Enemy even greater. You must bring the patient to a peak."

If you’re like me, you can remember your “troughs” pretty clearly. All of them are bad – many of them are horrible. You wouldn’t wish them on your worst enemy. But, for me, I wouldn’t give them up for the world. Those are the times God most revealed Himself to me and drew me ever nearer to Him.

“But I would say the opposite is just as true,” a friend told me on Sunday when I referred to Screwtape’s advice to Wormwood.

I had been thinking the exact same thing all day. For over the past months, I have often felt if God raised my peak any higher I would suffocate for lack of oxygen. But being on the peak has caused me more moments of trepidation than any trough ever has: what if I soar so high I forget my God?

I suppose if I have such thoughts one might say I am in no danger of forgetting the One who has placed me on this peak. But, personally, the danger is very real. While standing upon the peak and surveying the wondrous world around me, I long to cleave to my God all the more lest I stumble and fall. I often cry with the hymn writer, “Oh, Love, that will not let me go.”

I know with all my heart that the gracious Father who has seen me through every trough of my life will see me along the journey across the peak. And, I pray, that like the troughs that have made me who I am, so this peak will make me even stronger in my God.

“Lord, I believe. Help Thou my unbelief.”