I was facing a besetting sin. Sensing the approaching trial, I told the Lord I would prove my devotion this time by not asking His help. Less than an hour later, in a pool of tears, I began to realize something - Growing in grace doesn't mean you are more able to stand on your own two feet. Growing in grace means you give up much quicker than you once did. And to this end God will often break a man's legs in order to make him easier to carry.
I was reminded of this during a sermon this weekend, and ran across the same theme in a book I am reading by Edward Payson. The following is an excerpt. I hope this helps you today.
The young Christian thinks it would be best that he should be always lively, zealous, and engaged in religion; that he should feel faith, love and humility in constant exercise, and be like a flame of fire in His Master's service. But our blessed Teacher thinks otherwise. He knows that the most effectual, and, indeed, the only way, to mortify sin in our hearts, is to make us hate it; and the way to make us hate it is to suffer us to feel it. He knows that the only way to make us fervent and diligent in prayer, is to show us how many things we have to pray for, and convince us of our absolute need of His assistance. He knows that the best way to make us humble and contented is to show us what we are, and what we deserve; and that the only way to wean us from the world is, to render it a place of fatigue and uneasiness. He knows that there is nothing like the want of His presence to teach us the worth of it; and nothing like a sense of the dangerous nature of our disease, to show us the value of an Almighty Physician. Upon this plan, therefore, it is, that all His various dispensations toward Christians are conducted; until they are acquainted with this, they cannot understand them.
Legacy of a Legend: Spiritual Treasure from the Heart of Edward Payson
