A pall lies over the church. Like a thick blanket of winter
fog, spiritual coolness hovers above the people of God, freezing right to the
bone.
Where is passion? Where is heat? Where are spiritual vigor
and zeal? Who is there among the saints who is truly devoted, who has counted
all things as loss that he may gain Christ? Who is there that has forsaken all
to follow in the way of the cross: forsaken pleasures as well as sin, left
behind earthly comforts and passing joys for superior and lasting glory of a
heavenly sort?
I confess that I myself am not such a man. Always
distractions on every side; always laziness presses in on my soul; always does
hesitancy slow my steps and timidity hinder my path when I would run hard after
my God! O Lord! May I not be the man choked by the concerns of the world and
the desire for other things! Let me rather die today in flames of fervent love for
you and others than live ten thousand days in this spiritual desolation!
O my people, my people! My brothers and my sisters bought by
Majesty’s blood! Will we not together be done with lesser things and do all for
Jesus, sparing not our comfort or our very lives? Awake! Arise! Let us tread
this day the path He walked: after Golgotha waits Glory!
