After some harsh rebukes for Wormwood, Screwtape addresses the subject of prayer by Wormwood's patient in chapter four. I want to address a few things about prayer which may seem obvious to some of you and not so obvious to others.
Screwtape encourages the temptation of the patient to anything other than serious prayer. By serious prayer, I am guessing that Screwtape means when the patient completely shuts himself off from the cares and concerns of the rest of the world and engages the Father one-on-one in true quality time between Father and adopted Son.
Prayer is not about feelings, but rather about the concentrated effort which talking to God requires of us. To borrow from a missionary in Costa Rica, "Is this God talking to me, or just last night's pizza?" I say this because prayer is not about getting some good feelings, but instead about honest labor, often on behalf of someone else.
God is present in the room, in the very space where prayer takes place. Enough said.
Finally, prayer is very much affected by the place in which a person prays. Consider that a sociable person in the company of several very good friends will pray far more earnestly in that setting than he or she will when alone in the privacy of their own room. Also, a person who does not feel at all comfortable praying in church save the rare instance that he or she is called upon to do so will spend hours in prayer where no one else may see. This is not an advocation of "to each his own". Rather, the encouragement is for a Christian to pray in the place where they are most dedicated to the task at hand: direct communication with God on behalf of others and self. Though this is not necessarily covered in the book, I wanted to include this reflection because regular prayer is as much a discipline for Christians as marching is for military recruits.
The next post will be a look at chapter 5 and a reflection on the gospel of Luke.
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