The last few weeks have been dedicated to character redevelopment for several stories, and here’s something for today: a glimpse at further character development, and something on the importance of contentment

    Anna wakes up most mornings angry and disappointed. Why? Because her life is not in order. Because she is not who she expected she would be, or who she wanted herself to be, at least not at this stage of her life. She had around ten things on her to-do list yesterday, and two of those are still unticked, meaning they were not done. Her efforts at achieving her desires, those simple desires that everyone has every day, have all but come undone.

    That does not happen daily; some days, she wakes up feeling quite at peace. While most of us would celebrate those days, and she sometimes does, more often than not they serve as reminders for her of all the other days, the days come undone. By sundown, such a peaceful day will be disrupted by the incessant, nagging thought she had pushed to the back of her mind: “Why can’t every day be like today?” And thus she begins piling on the pressure to make tomorrow as good, or preferably better than today, at sunset of the day before tomorrow. She also happens to be a “lists” person. She keeps track of everything. And all of these things end up on a list somewhere, if not on a physical sheet of paper she keeps in her purse, then, at least, in some mental storage space.

Yesterday was C.S. Lewis Day. So, instead of posting something of my own, we shall have an excerpt from one of C.S. Lewis' essays on prayer.

January 1959
The Efficacy of Prayer
    ...
    The question then arises, “What sort of evidence would prove the efficacy of prayer?”The thing we pray for may happen, but how can you ever know it was not going to happen anyway? Even if the thing were indisputably miraculous it would not follow that the miracle had occurred because of your prayers. The answer surely is that a compulsive empirical Proof such as we have in the sciences can never be attained.

    Some things are proved by the unbroken uniformity of our experiences. The law of gravitation is established by the fact that, in our experience, all bodies without exception obey it. Now even if all the things that people prayed for happened, which they do not, this would not prove what Christians mean by the efficacy of prayer. For prayer is request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted. And if an infinitely wise Being listens to the requests of finite and foolish creatures, of course He will sometimes grant and sometimes refuse them. Invariable “success” in prayer would not prove the Christian doctrine at all. It would prove something much more like magic—a power in certain human beings to control, or compel, the course of nature.

    Everyone, myself included, would have to admit that worry is a common temptation in life. Somehow, living in this broke world makes us want to worry even if we don’t really want to. And, worry is a sin. Jesus prohibited worry during His Sermon on the Mount, and three times did He command us to not worry! He understands that worrying is a common practice, and that we should stop being so worrisome. Instead of worrying, we ought to be thankful for what we have and lift up our concerns to the Lord.

    I’m not fond of writing things full of “I”, “I”, “I’s”, but I find that I can account for hours upon end of time spent worrying. Those are hours I will never regain. If I worry, what sort of faith do I manifest? It is embarrassing to admit, but it is probably little faith. Think about it this way: a Christian that worries believes the God can redeem him, break the control of the Enemy over his life, free him from sin, and give him eternal life in heaven; but God would be unable to help him resolve the little things, like a fight or a few money problems.

    In the past few days, I have seen, read, and heard all sorts of broken theology. Broken theology is all a bunch of lies. Some are told that you can follow Jesus without sacrifice. Some say that you sacrifice for things that are not worth it. Some say it’s okay to be selfish, especially if it makes you happy. Imagine if you spent all that time, money, or effort that you sacrifice for others for yourself, what kinds of fun could you be having or what new toys could you own by now? All a bunch of pretty, sugar-coated lies. And we love them.

    There is a ‘real’ right and wrong. If it were not so, how could we declare so many things to be wrong? For example: this whole idea of discretionary funding for politicians, governmental corruption, politically-motivated massacres, even something as simple as someone lying to you. If you managed to find someone who disagrees with this notion of right and wrong, and you will undoubtedly detect the hypocrisy. He may break a promise or two made to you, but once you do the same, you are mean and wrong. A nation may violate another nation’s sovereignty, but as soon as someone tries to violate theirs, they say that their sovereignty is being challenged. The list can go on forever.

    If there is no real difference between fairness and unfairness, how is one able to claim the idea that they are being treated unfairly? How would you differentiate between how one ought to be treated?