Growing no faster "than grace allows"

excerpt from "God is closer than you think" by John Ortberg

If you find yourself slow in making progress, take heart. Brother Lawrence writes that for ten years "I was worried that my walk with the Lord wasn't good enough ... Sometimes it got so bad that I thought I was on my way to hell - willfully offending God - and that there was no salvation for me." This was the point when Lawrence stopped expecting to grow any faster. When he accepted his own "slowness," he as at last able to begin to live in grace from one moment to the next. He counseled others to be similarly patient. He writes about one person who was full of good intentions but "wants to go faster than grace allows."