Skyler Bailey

“C. S. Lewis observed that new believers can become discouraged, right at the doorstep of faith, if they seek only the initial emotional experience, not the ongoing reality of a maturing relationship with God. Speaking in the fictional voice of a devilish tempter in The Screwtape Letters, he wrote, The Enemy [God] allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavor. . . . The Enemy takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His “free” lovers and servants—“sons” is the word He uses. . . . Desiring their freedom, He therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which He sets before them: He leaves them to “do it on their own.” And there lies our opportunity. But also, remember, there lies our danger. If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt.”
― Greg Laurie, Jesus Revolution: How God Transformed an Unlikely Generation and How He Can Do It Again Today