hat there has
been going on a spiritual atrophy, the spiritual powers have been
without exercise and will be difficult to arouse to activity. In such a
case as that spiritual awakening will be followed by a long period of
spiritual struggle against habits of thought and action which we have
already formed, a period in which unused and immature spiritual powers
must be roused to action and disciplined to use. The simplest
illustration of this is the difficulty experienced by the enthusiastic
beginner in holding the attention fixed on spiritual acts such as the
various forms of prayer. In all such attempts at spiritual activity
there will be the constant drag of old habits, the recurrence of states
of mind and imagination that had become habitual. These hindrances can
be overcome, but only by steady and rather tedious labour. They call for
the display of the virtue of patience which is not one of the virtues
characteristic of spiritual immaturity. Hence reaction and the feeling
that one is not getting on, the feeling that we have quite possibly made
a mistake about the whole matter.

This is the place for the exercise of hope; and hope will come if we
look away from our not very encouraging acquirement to the ground that
we have for expecting any acquirement at all. If we ask: "Why hope?" we
shall see that our basis of hope is not in ourselves at all but in God.
We hope because of the promises of God, because of His will for us as
revealed in His Son. "He loved us and gave Himself for us"; and that
giving will not be in vain. "He gave Himself for me," I tell myself,
"and therefore I am justified in my expectation of spiritual success."
So one tries to learn from the present failure as it seems; so one
repents and pushes on; so one learns that it is through tenacity of
purpose that one attains results.

And again: I am sustained by hope because I see that the results that I
covet are not imaginary. They exist. I see them in operation all about
me. I learn of them as I study the lives of other Christians past and
present. They are reality not theory, fact not dream. And what has been
so richly and abundantly the outcome of spiritual living in others must
be within my own reach. The results they attained were not miraculous
gifts, but they were the working of God the Holy Spirit in lives yielded
to Him and co-operating with Him.

Once more: is it not true that after a period of honest labour I do find
results? Perhaps not