Little by Little

Little by Little
Deuteronomy 7: 16- 9: 3

In an agonized e-mail I received from a friend, she described herself as constantly frustrated by the fact that she is not as mature as she thinks she should be. “Why do I go back to fighting the same old battles in my spiritual life instead of newer ones? Why, after dying a million deaths to something, am I still not dead and done with it?” She had imagined that as a growing Christian, she would be done with a certain thing, such as anger or pride, and would face other, different types of things to fight and overcome. “I know that God’s strength is manifest in my weaknesses,” she continued, “that he is the mighty savior, my strong deliverer, one who works out my sanctification now and here, that I walk in daily fellowship with him, and that I become more than an overcomer by trusting Jesus to give me the victory.” Her question was, Why was there such a gap between what she knew and what she experienced, even after walking this path for thirty years. “In my earlier years my hope had been that things were going to get better as I grew older,” she said, “but at almost fifty, things have not gotten that much ‘better.’ ”...