Write there. In the weak spot of impossibility.

I have learnt that I am me, that I can do the things that, as one might put it, me can do, but I cannot do the things that me would like to do.

I am willing to sound dumb. I am willing to be wrong. I am willing to be passionate about something that isn't perceived as cool. I am willing to express a theory. I am willing to admit I'm afraid. I'm willing to contradict something I've said before. I'm willing to have a knee-jerk reaction, even a wrong one. I'm willing to apologize. I'm perfectly willing to be perfectly human.

God is going to reveal me as a flawed human being as fast as he can and he's going to enjoy it because it will force me to grapple with real intimacy.

It makes me wonder how many people have damaged their own lives by mistaking enablement for grace?

Perhaps if we stop reducing the text to formulas for personal growth, we can read it as stories of imperfect humans having relations with a perfect God and come to understand the obvious message He is communicating to mankind.

God allows us to face the tension whether we like it or not.

If I was going to make Betsy happy, I'd have to trust that my flaws were the ways through which I would receive grace. We don't think of our flaws as the glue that binds us to the people we love, but they are. Grace only sticks to our imperfections. Those who can't accept their imperfections can't accept grace either.

Hearken, my believing reader. What is the cause of your weakness? Is it not because the fountain of life is little used? Is it not because you are resting on old experiences, and not daily gathering new manna—daily drawing new strength from Christ?

The family of Abraham will no longer feel temptations, and the family of Job will not feel afflictions. The family of David will no longer mourn loss and death, the family of Paul will not feel thorns in the flesh, and the family of Lazarus will no longer be afflicted by poverty and sores.

True holiness does not make a Christian evade difficulties, but it allows him to face and overcome them. Jesus wants His people to show that His grace is not a mere greenhouse plant that can only thrive under shelter, but is a strong, hardy thing that can flourish in every circumstance of life. It is doing our duty in that condition to which God has called us — like salt in the midst of corruption and light in the midst of darkness — that is a primary element in sanctification.

The riper he is for glory, the more, like the ripe corn, he hangs down his head. The brighter and clearer is his light, the more he sees of the shortcomings and infirmities of his own heart. When first converted, he would tell you he saw but little of them compared to what he sees now.