the christian life: a sketch

Paul Washer, in his book The Gospel Call & True Conversion, gives a snapshot of what conversion and growth in Christ by the power of the Spirit looks like. 

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“[Here] is an individual who hears the gospel and makes a profession of faith in Christ. He is not sure what has happened to him or how to explain it. He just knows that something is very different—that he is different. He begins to see his former life in a new light. The things in which he once delighted—and even boasted—seem wrong and shameful to him. He begins to take interest in Christ and wants to know more about Him and His will. He seems estranged from his old friends and finds better company among the saints. As he continues on, he experiences progress in his growth to maturity, but he also faces challenges and all-too-frequent failures. He delights in the will of God but finds that he is not immune to temptation. He battles against the world on the outside and the flesh within. He rejoices in the grace of God that enables him to overcome and laments the times he fails. He finds in himself a great contradiction. He listens to sermons and reads books that cause him to delight in Christ as the end of all desire, and then a few moments later he must struggle with a lukewarm heart. When he reads the Word, he receives great consolation, but it also pierces him like a two-edged sword and exposes sin that was before unknown. As he progresses further in his pilgrimage, he becomes acutely aware of God’s paternal control of his life. Sometimes the discipline is slight, but at other times, it seems as if he is being scourged without relief. A few times, he even thinks of walking away, but he cannot. He cannot bear just the thought of being separated from Christ, and so he returns, “weak and wounded, sick and sore.” It seems to him that the Christian life is three steps forward and two steps back. He sins, but he cannot continue in his sin; he falls, but he cannot remain fallen. He seems to climb one hill just to go down the other side. However, little by little, he is ascending, progressing, growing. In all this, the good and bad, is inescapable evidence of conversion. All true believers are able to identify with this scenario.” 

(111-112)

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This is comforting to me, because so often in my struggles against sin, and in my striving to be like Christ, and in those moments when everything feels so dry and empty, I start to wonder, "Am I really saved?" It's a guilt complex, or something akin to it.