In the beginning of my Christian experience I had but to see a truth to
feel within a strong drawing to obedience. But now all was different.
The cold facts of my condition were plain to me, but there was no inward
force compelling me to act according to the knowledge I had gained. I
was tossed about and wished more than I can tell for some inward urging
of the Spirit of God toward the performance of my duty. I did not know
the truth that God accepts the decision of the will as the purpose of
the heart. I supposed that no act could be acceptable to God unless
it came from a warm feeling of love. The deadness and the apathy of my
heart were sickening. I saw clearly the wretchedness of my condition,
but there was no breaking up, no feeling of sorrow, no conviction (as
I thought), no love for God. If I could only have shed some tears; if my
soul had only been exercised for its own deliverance! But all within was
as still as a stone; only my mind seemed active.
At last, however, I saw that this apparent lack of sorrow was only
another step toward the utter repudiation of self. In the past, self
had hidden behind my tears, and I had unconsciously trusted in my sorrow
instead of in the Lord, thinking that surely because I felt so sorry,
I should not repeat the offense. But a feeling of sorrow can not save,
as I proved again and again by repeated failures, and so God, wishing
to strip me of anything in which to trust except himself, allowed me
not even the satisfaction of tears or a breaking up of heart. He wished
to teach me that real repentance is an act of the will and not of the
emotions. For a tender heart, one should be grateful, but to trust in
that for victory over sin or faults can only lead to repeated failure.
So at last I was willing to submit this point to him who doeth all
things well and was willing to cast myself, unworthy, undone, without
a vestige of hope in myself, nor a place to set my feet, wholly upon
him and to believe that he took me AS I WAS, whether I was able to do
or be anything or not, and would begin to work in me his divine will.