The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it. Now error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are the less their victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil. Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt.
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The human spirit resists relinquishing self-will as long as it perceives everything to be going smoothly. This tendency highlights that individuals often fail to recognize deeper issues, such as error and sin, which can remain hidden beneath the surface. These insidious forms of harm can go unnoticed until they manifest more clearly.
In contrast, pain reveals itself as an undeniable form of evil, and it serves as a wake-up call to the individual. Unlike the subtlety of hidden sins, physical suffering forces everyone to confront the reality that something is amiss in their lives. C.S. Lewis emphasizes that while we may ignore underlying problems, pain compels us to acknowledge the presence of issues that need to be addressed.
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