Let Us Arise And Be Doing, And The Lord Will Be With Us

Don't use your dependence on God as an excuse for doing less than God has enabled you to do:

To undertake vigorously and rely confidently on the divine assistance is more than half the battle. Let us arise and be doing, and the Lord will be with us.

True religion in the souls of men and women is primarily the work of God. All our natural endeavors cannot produce it unaided, nor merit the supernatural aids by which it is achieved. The Holy Spirit must come upon us and the power of the highest must overshadow us before anything holy can be accomplished and Christ formed in us.

However, we must not expect that this whole work should be done without any concurring endeavors of our own. We must not lie loitering in the ditch and wait there until Omnipotence pulls us out! No! No! We must stir ourselves and activate those powers that we have already received. We must exert ourselves to the utmost and hope that our labor shall not be in vain in the Lord.

All the art and industry of man cannot create the smallest plant or make a stalk of corn grow in the field—it is the energy of nature and the influence of heaven that produce this effect. It is God who causes the grass to grow and pasture for the services of man, and yet no one would say that the labors of the farmer are useless or unnecessary….

Although a stroke of Omnipotence must intervene to effect this mighty change in our souls, yet we ought to do what we can to prepare ourselves and render ourselves fit—for we must break up our fallow ground, root out the weeds, and pull up the thorns so that we may be the more ready to receive the seeds of grace and the dew of heaven.

It is true that God has occasionally been found by someone who did not seek him. God casts himself in their way even though they are far from him. He lays hold of them and stops them in their tracks. It was in this way that St. Paul was converted on his journey to Damascus. But this is not God's ordinary way of dealing with men. Though he has not tied himself to any particular means, yet he has tied us to the use of them. We never have more reason to expect the divine assistance than when we are doing our utmost.

(Henry Scougal, in Robin Taylor, ed., The Life Of God In The Soul Of Man [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2022], approximate Kindle location 652)