The Christian Secret To A Happy Life-4

In the next section of her book, Smith addresses other difficulties that Christians face. She begins with the difficulty of doubt. She maintains that many Christians are slaves to doubt and that the moment we give into doubt, our fight ceases and rebellion begins. She calls doubt a great trial.

Smith says that deliverance from doubts is found in handing it over to Christ. She urges us to pay not attention to doubts, but rather treat them with contempt. She says we should tell the Lord about our weaknesses and doubts and rely on the Lord’s faithfulness rather than our own.
Another difficulty that Smith tackles is temptation. Some Christians get discouraged when they face temptation. Smith tells us that we should expect temptation to increase the higher we get in the Christian life. I think there is truth in that observation.

Smith reminds us that temptations themselves are not sin. She notes that when we experience them, we feel that we must be far away from God. What is needed is confidence that overcome discouragement. We do sin it we dwell on our temptations.

We can think that the hours battling temptation are lost, but actually by fighting temptation, we are serving God. Temptation is a tool God uses to perfect us. Once again, the way to be victorious over temptations is to hand them over to God
Finally, Smith looks at difficulties concerning failure. By failure, Smith means conscious, known sin, not the sin of ignorance or the inevitable sin of our nature. She make clear that failures do happen in the life of faith.

A sudden failure is not a reason to be discouraged. The Christian higher life is not a state, but a walk. The most important thing is to turn completely back to God, to confess immediately even if we think we ought to suffer first. We must abandon ourselves completely to the Lord, forgetting our sin as soon as it is confess and forgiven.

Anything cherished in the heart that is contrary to the will of God will cause us to fall. When we fail, we must look for the cause. Some innocent looking habit or indulgence, some unimportant thing lies at the root of most failure. Some secret corner is kept lock against the Lord.