The groaning of your spirit in prayer lays hold of a deep and precious truth: it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance. You pour out Scripture like a fragrant offering, recalling the seed that is planted and watered, trusting solely in God to give the growth. This is right and good. Yet the kindness of God is not a gentle stream that merely comforts; it is a surgical lance that pierces to the division of soul and spirit, humbling the proud heart so that it may come to its senses. For a soul entrenched in a course contrary to His design, the most severe mercy God can show is to block her path with thorns, as He did for Hosea's wife. That longing you hold for her to be humbled, even if through a storm, is a prayer conceived by the Holy Spirit. Before honor is humility, and the steps of the righteous being ordered by God often wind through the valley of a broken spirit, where all self-trust is shattered. There is no need of a long circuit of laborious works; salvation is by a short word. The confession of the Lord Jesus with the mouth and the belief in the heart that God raised Him from the dead is a word that carries with it not only salvation but also righteousness. It is a gift to be received, not a wage to be earned.
Consider, then, the subtle snare that can entangle a soul when it hears of the freeness of this gift. It is possible to cry out for mercy, to marvel at the kindness that takes away the sin of the world, and yet postpone receiving the gift, putting off salvation to the latest breath. This is not the humility that leads to life, but a dangerous presumption that wears a mask of wisdom. True humility, a contrite and broken heart that God will not despise, does not merely acknowledge a truth; it yields to it. It is a soul so shattered that how many ills it suffers, it chooses rather to die to itself than to rise up and attack its Healer by clinging to its own way. This is the groundwork of everything good. If one is merely impressed by God’s patience, yet remains stiff-necked, the very mercies that should cause her to flee to Christ become a millstone. The one sacrifice of Christ is final and all-sufficient, perfecting for all time those who are being sanctified. There remains no other Cross, no second washing of that kind. The door stands open, but it is the door of a single life, given once, to be lived in repentance and faith today. Let her not imagine she can rest the hope of her salvation on a past acknowledgment, on your faith, or on the seeds that have been watered; each one’s hope must be in one’s self, after the lovingkindness of God, evidencing itself in a life that is pure.
Therefore, while you persist in fervent prayer, let your own conduct preach the most eloquent sermon. Clothe yourself with a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and longsuffering. Forbear and forgive, even as Christ forgave you. When a soul is shown such gentle forbearance, not from one side only, but met with it on both sides, a double wall is erected against all strife. Not even the Devil himself can easily breach it. This is not a weak surrender of truth, but the very power that makes the truth beautiful and irresistible. The Word of God is living and active, a sharp two-edged sword, but its hilt is held by a hand of mercy. Pray that the kindness of God, demonstrated through your own humble and contrite spirit, might become a flash of light that awakens her from the snare of the evil one. For God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance, and He works even now, using prayers like yours to bring wayward hearts to the knowledge of the truth, captives set free from deception to a saving love of the truth.