David McIntyre on Sanctification

So encouraging. 

"While we abide in Christ, we ought not to allow ourselves to be discouraged by the apparent slowness of our advancement in grace. In nature, growth proceeds with varying speed. Sibbes compares the progressive sanctification of believers to the increase in herbs and trees, which 'grow at the root in winter, in the leaf in summer, and in the seed in autumn.' The first of these forms of increase seems very slow; the second is more rapid; the third rushes on to full maturity. In a few days of early autumn a field of grain will seem to ripen more than in weeks of midsummer."

- David McIntyre, The Hidden Life of Prayer