18 March
Understanding Evil
Remember that, as I said, the right direction leads not only to peace but to knowledge. When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.
—from Mere Christianity
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity. Copyright © 1952, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1980, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. Copyright © 2003 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
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March 18
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth, and thy want as an armed man (6:10-11).
The white lines flashed past hypnotically. The road stretched into an endless ribbon of gray. The sound of the radio faded in and out, and the car seemed to sweep the road with a mind of its own. The tires skidded in the soft gravel of the shoulder, and, had it not been for a sturdy guardrail, the car would have gone over the edge of a deep ravine. By the time the foggy mist had lifted from my mind, I was sitting at an odd angle, counting my blessing for being still alive. I had dozed just briefly, perhaps not even a minute, but that was all the time it took for me to end in the ditch. It could have been all the time needed to end my life.
Sin is like that. It creeps up on us, makes us feel comfortable and lazy, and then it strikes when our defenses are down. The results can be tragic. Moral alertness is as important to our spiritual lives as physical alertness is to making sure we stay safe in an automobile. It is when we "fall asleep at the wheel" that evil can take its toll in our lives. The wise driver avoids the road when he or she is physically tired. Isn't it as wise for us, as Christians, to avoid those situations in our lives when we know we are not strong, or when we are most susceptible?
prayer: Almighty God, I often grow drowsy in my spiritual pilgrimage. When I am in need of rest, be my stronghold. Protect me from the wiles of the evil one. Strengthen me that I might resist evil, so that it will flee from me. Amen.
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