The Weevil Strategies

Wesley Tillett

Description

Playing off C.S. Lewis’ classic “The Screwtape Letters,” The Weevil Strategies creatively armors a new generation for serious spiritual battle.
Whether we want it or not, whether we believe it or not, every one of us is engaged in a spiritual battle. Evil is smart. It doesn’t come at us with temptations clearly labeled “evil.” It quietly plays to our fears. It slyly preys on our desires. “The Weevil Strategies” playfully turns the lights on some seriously dark attempts to ruin our lives. By becoming aware of the strategies of our spiritual enemy, we are empowered to overcome all that would keep us from living to the max of freedom, joy, and fruitfulness.

Sujets

• Religious
• C.S.
• Screwtape
• Strategy
• Demon
• Evil
• Guide
• Stratégies
• Lewis
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: LifeRich Publishing
• Date de parution: 14 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781489748089
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE WEEVIL STRATEGIES
 
A Handy, Demonic Guide To Ruining Human Lives
 
 
 
 
WESLEY TILLETT
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Copyright © 2023 Wesley Tillett.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
 
LifeRich Publishing is a registered trademark of The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.
 
 
LifeRich Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.liferichpublishing.com
844-686-9607
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-4897-4807-2 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4897-4808-9 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023911014
 
 
LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 07/05/2023
 
 
 
 
 
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
 
All Scripture quotations in this publication are from The Message. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
 
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction: Weevil Arrives
Lesson 1 The Overall Aim
Lesson 2 Fear of Missing Out
Lesson 3 Pride
Story Break: The Four Sisters
Lesson 4 Lies
Lesson 5 Ingratitude
Lesson 6 Envy
Story Break: Bright Cloud
Lesson 7 Competing Beliefs (Cognitive Dissonance)
Lesson 8 Accusation
Lesson 9 Anxiety
Story Break: Mateo
Lesson 10 Blame
Lesson 11 Shame
Lesson 12 Self-Righteousness
Story Break: Summer Brook
Lesson 13 Lust
Lesson 14 Deception
Lesson 15 Evil
Lesson 16 Fear
Finale: Deployment
Point After: Help and Hope
Conversation Guide
References
Acknowledgments
FOREWORD
Whether we want it or not, whether we believe it or not, we are in a battle. 1 Every day. Good versus evil.
Part of evil’s strategy is to get us to not see or not care about the battle. But the fact is evil exists. We all see it: abuse, addiction, violence, oppression, racism, poverty, disease, death.
At times the destructive force seems random – the earthquake, the epidemic. But at other times it has some definite intelligence and intentionality in it – the serial killer, the genocide. In order to have intelligence and intention, it must have some sort of being.
In the ancient Scriptures that evil being is known as “the satan” – “the one who opposes” – evil incarnate. Satan is real. And he is not stupid.
Satan might be a fool for fighting against God, but he is not foolish in how he attacks God’s people. He strategizes. His schemes are designed to outsmart us. 2 Too often, they do. (If you are already rolling your eyes at all this talk about evil and Satan, it might be good to wonder what causes you to think and feel as you do.)
In The Weevil Strategies I write from a demonic perspective how to lead people away from God. This idea is not original to me, of course. C.S. Lewis, Peter Kreeft, and others have gone before me in using this somewhat upside-down way of conveying truth. With this book I seek to arm young people for the battle of their lives. The battle for their lives.
I aim for this book to be both witty and wise. I generally fall short on both counts. Yet my hope is that God’s light somehow squeezes through the cracks. God seems to delight in using human weakness to amplify his strength. 3
Evil exists, yes, but we are not defenseless. On the eve of his death, Jesus prayed to the Father, “ My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one .” 4 Jesus knew we would be in this spiritual battle. And he has prayed for our protection, wanting us to battle against evil so we can experience freedom and fullness of life even now.
As tricky as Satan and his demons can be, they are no match for the powerful goodness of God. The evil beings are creatures and therefore not infinite. They are limited. They ultimately cannot prevent the building up of God’s reign.
So take heart. Though in these pages I try to make it sound like the demons believe they have the upper hand (why would they fight if they didn’t think they could win?), in truth God will win. “If God is for us, who can stand against us?” 5
INTRODUCTION
WEEVIL ARRIVES
A demon named Weevil is a sergeant in the demon armies. One of his duties is to drill the basics of demonic tactics into the demon ranks.
A trainee recorded the arrogant and insecure Weevil’s lessons word for word, put them in print, and produced “The Weevil Strategies.” Weevil’s lessons start here:
Attention, my fellow and inferior demons! My name is Weevil. Sergeant We evil.
No doubt some of you assume I was named Weevil because I am rather small and beetle-like and I have an enormous nose. But you would be wrong. I imagine that when our Father Below saw me, he was so struck by my evilness he decided to call me “eevil” with two “e’s.” He probably added the “w” to signify “winner.” It’s almost cer tain.
Weevil is the name and evil is the game. Just know that you are being taught by a master deceiver, you lucky devils. Take notes. Autographs will have to wait.
As a result of my training you should become more like the muscular and majestic demon standing before you: thoroughly evil, cleverly calculating, devastatingly effec tive.
I see some of you rolling your eyes at me. No doubt you have heard about some of my past defeats. Well, those setbacks are not my fault. The Enemy is a bigger cheater than we are. He even cheats death. 6 I know you would not have done as well as I did in those situations, given the deck is forever stacked against us. So shut up and listen up, you roo kies.
I will walk you through several of our most effective strategies for bringing humans under our influence. I will start with the main objective. Be mindful that this objective is the end goal of every one of the tac tics.
Along the way you will receive some real-life examples of demonic strategy from yours truly. I have been assigned a specific family to attack and tempt. As you will see, I am brilliantly assaulting the young people in the family: a young woman, Jordyn, and her younger brother, James. For sure you will be inspired by my expert evil.
Now on to our cunning and cruel work. Let’s sink our fangs into some souls. Long live Luc ifer!
LESSON 1
THE OVERALL AIM
Separation from God — that’s the goal. Never forget this, my fellow demons. This is the one aim of all our efforts against the human race: to separate each and every person from a sincere connection to our Enemy, God the Creator.
That aim is everything. Envy, lust, lies, fear, greed, shame — all of it is to be used to drive people away from that One who loves those humans the most. Not only does this destroy the humans, it also inflicts sharp pain into the heart of the Enemy. 7 A double win for us.
Meet the humans wherever they are and lead them into the darkness.
I find one of the surest ways to separate humans from their Maker is by helping them build a false identity. It does not matter if a person is young or old; conservative or progressive; single, married or divorced; Black, Brown, or White; “a cool kid” or “a loser.” The point is to use all of this to help them construct a distorted and shaky identity, built upon the shifting sands of human perspective, not the solid rock of divine perspective.
Humans are forever forgetting their truest identity. They could live a peaceful life. They could be content and grateful to be a child of God. But most humans won’t. Instead, they will strive to build an identity that makes them feel superior to other humans. Just watch them. If a person has some sort of talent, they almost always think their talent is the most important thing about them. If they have no remarkable talent to speak of, they obsess over trying to find something in themselves that distinguishes them as unique or valuable or superior. This is good for us. Human hearts will always be restless until they rest in God. 8 We want to keep blowing the winds of restlessness upon them, tumbling them through life like a leaf in the wind.
Drive them away from the Enemy. Away from the Enemy. Away from the Enemy. Always. Anything less than God is infinitely less.
Most humans root their identity in some sort of label: athletes or band kids; conservatives or progressives; rich, poor, middle class; men, women, transgender; the spiritual, the secular — you get the idea. Any identity that takes priority over a human’