Everything on earth needs to be renewed. Nothing created keeps going by itself. "You renew the face of the year," the psalmist declared. Even the trees—which don't wear themselves out with worry or cut their lives short with labor—must drink heaven's rain and draw from the soil's hidden treasures. The mighty cedars of Lebanon, planted by God himself, only live because every single day they fill with fresh sap drawn up from the earth.

Neither can your life be sustained without renewal from God. Just as you must repair your body's daily wear with regular meals, so you must repair your soul's daily wear by feeding on the Word of God. By listening to preaching. By coming to the soul-fattening table of the ordinances. How shriveled our spiritual life becomes when we neglect these things! What spiritual starvelings some believers are, trying to live without diligent use of God's Word and secret prayer!

Listen: if your faith can survive without God, it was never from God. It's but a dream. Because if God had given birth to it, it would wait upon him like flowers wait upon the morning dew.

Without constant renewal, we are not ready for anything. Not for hell's perpetual assaults. Not for heaven's stern afflictions. Not even for the battles raging in our own hearts. When the whirlwind comes, woe to the tree that hasn't drawn fresh sap, that hasn't grasped the rock with many intertwisted roots! When storms rise, woe to the sailors who haven't strengthened their mast, dropped their anchor, or sought the haven.

If we let the good in us grow weaker, the evil will surely grow stronger and struggle desperately for mastery over us. And then? Perhaps a painful desolation. Perhaps a lamentable disgrace.

Come then. Draw near to the footstool of divine mercy in humble entreaty, and you will realize the fulfillment of the promise: "Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength."