Context: Inspired by C.S. Lewis’s classic – The Screwtape Letters, this fictional series features letters from a senior demon to his young protégé, exposing hell’s subtle strategies against believers. These are not meant to amuse, but to awaken.

This isn’t just satire – it’s a mirror. A sharp one. Because sometimes the enemy’s strategies sound uncomfortably familiar.

My dear Wormwood,

Ah, the patient is praying more. How unfortunate. But do not despair, prayer is not our greatest threat. Answered prayer is.

Your job, therefore, is not to stop him from praying but to poison how he prays. Twist trust into suspicion. Bend faith into calculation. Convince him that what he calls “discernment” is just cautious wisdom when really, it’s fear in a cloak.

Encourage him to dissect every impression from the Enemy until he’s paralyzed by analysis. If he senses a leading from the Spirit, nudge him to question if it’s “just his own thoughts.” 

Make him doubt whether God still speaks at all. After all, wasn’t that our first trick in the garden? Did God really say?

The Enemy calls it testing the spirits. We call it choking the flow.

And if he does feel God is leading him to do something especially something sacrificial, whisper alternatives. Offer distractions. Suggest that “maybe it’s not the right season.” 

Have him seek ten confirmations, and if he gets them, tell him he’s being “too emotional.” The goal is to keep him in a never-ending loop of spiritual hesitation.

Oh, and get him addicted to seeking signs but allergic to simple obedience.

Do not let him remember that Abraham simply went, Noah quietly built, Mary humbly believed, and Peter dared to step out. Bury from his mind that Joshua marched around walls instead of storming them, that Gideon blew trumpets instead of wielding swords, that the widow gave her last handful of flour, or that the servants at Cana filled jars with nothing but water. These acts of absurd obedience led to unexplainable victories and that must remain hidden from him.

Instead, saturate his mind with every risk, every uncertainty, every “what if.” Whisper that faith is reckless and obedience naïve. And if he dares to take a step, slide in the poisoned thought: “Surely God wouldn’t let you fail, right?” Then, when the first wave of difficulty slams against him as it inevitably will, twist the knife and hiss, “See? It was not God.”

You see, our Father below loves a Christian who believes in the sovereignty of God but acts like an orphan.

Keep him cautious. Keep him clever. Keep him stuck.

With devout misdirection,
Screwtape