In the Trough

This is an excerpt from one of my favorite books, The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (one of my favorite writers). The book is written in the form of letters from one more experienced demon to his 'nephew'. So keep that in mind as you read it.
*By 'trough', he is referrring to the high and low points in our ever-growing relationship with Christ.

"But there is an even better way of exploiting the trough; I mean through the patient's own thoghts about it. As always, the first step is to keep knowledge out of his mind. Do not let im suspect the law of undulaton. Let him assume that te first ardours of his voncersion might have been expected to last, and ought to have lasted, forever, and that hs present drness is an equally permanent condition. Having once got this misconception well fixed in his head, you may then proceed in vaious ways. It all depends on whether your man is of the deponding type who can be tempted to despair or of the wishfu-thinking type who can be assured that all is well. The former type is getting rare among the humans. If your patient should happen to belong to it, everything is easy. You have only got to keep him out of the way of experienced Christians (an easy enough task now-adays), to direct his attention to the appropriate passages in scripture, and then to set him to work on the desperate design of recovering his old feelings by sheer will-power, and the game is ours. If he is the more hopeful type your job is to make him aquiesce in the present low temperat ure of his spirit and gradually become content with it, persuading himself that it is not so low after all. In a weeek or two you will be making him doubt whether the first days of his Christianity were not, perhaps, a little ecessive. Talk to him about 'moderation in all things'. If you can oncde get him to the point of thinking that 'religion is all very well up to a point', you can feel equite happy about his soul. A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all- and more amusing."

Have a blessed day!