Since I read the following words from Jonathan Edwards diary, I’ve taken great comfort in them, especially at times of personal failure. Those words also make me want to learn how to lean on the Holy Spirit instead of myself.
I am posting them without comment that you might read and reread them, because such observations are not easy to come by in modern evangelicalism.
The words are from Dr. Steven J. Lawson’s book about Edwards spiritual life, specifically about his 70 spiritual resolutions and how he learned to keep them: the quote comes from under the subheading, Personal Inability, in chapter 3; before those words, however, read a statement about Edwards:
I am tempted, perhaps foolish, to compare the Puritans to the Alps, Luther and Calvin to the Himalayas, and Jonathan Edwards to Mount Everest! He has always seemed to me the man most like the Apostle Paul. —D. MARTYN LLOYD-JONES
From Chapter 3; a diary entry of Edwards:
Wednesday, Jan. 2, 1722–23. Dull. I find, by experience, that, let me make resolutions, and do what I will, with never so many inventions, it is all nothing, and to no purpose at all, without the motions of the Spirit of God; for if the Spirit of God should be as much withdrawn from me always, as for the week past, notwithstanding all I do, I should not grow, but should languish, and miserably fade away. I perceive, if God should withdraw His Spirit a little more, I should not hesitate to break my resolutions, and should soon arrive at my old state. There is no dependence on myself
One week later, Edwards again admitted his weakness and inability to keep the resolutions he was making. The problem was his heart, which remained deceitful. Even when he made a “strong resolution,” he had not the strength to keep it: “Wednesday, Jan. 9. At night. … How deceitful is my heart! I take up a strong resolution, but how soon doth it weaken!” Edwards was becoming an expert in his own inability.
The same humbling realization struck again the next week. Edwards found he was too weak to do anything spiritually pleasing to God. He lamented: “Jan. 15, Tuesday. … But alas! How soon do I decay! O how weak, how infirm, how unable to do anything of myself! What a poor inconsistent being! What a miserable wretch, without the assistance of the Spirit of God. … How weak do I find myself! O let it teach me to depend less on myself, to be more humble.”
Lawson, Steven J.. The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edwards (A Long Line of Godly Men Series Book 2) (pp. 50-51). Ligonier Ministries. Kindle Edition.
If such things are true of a man given to the church by God and used so greatly, then how much more so are they true of us?
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