Dark Wood

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. - Colossians 1:28-29

Discipline of the inner man

“But the dark wood may be something quite different. It may be an exposure to a sudden temptation, perhaps connected in some subtle way with the very work itself—the work across which we have written “Holiness unto the Lord.” If this be so, the tempter is sure to choose a weary hour, perhaps a discouraged hour. And he flings himself upon us with a violence unimagined before. But all the great staining temptations, to selfishness, ambition, and other strong sins that violently affront the soul, appear first in the region of the mind, and can be fought and conquered there. We have been given the power to close the door of the mind. We can lose this power through disuse or increase it by use, by the daily discipline of the inner man in things which seem small and by reliance upon the word of the Spirit of Truth.” Gold By Moonlight - Amy Carmichael