The Desire of the Soul by Charles H. Spurgeon

…A Christian man has not always a bright shining sun. He has seasons of darkness and of night…..Experience tells us that the course of the just be as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day, yet sometimes that light is eclipsed. At certain periods, clouds and darkness cover the sun and he beholds no clear shining of the daylight, but walks in darkness and sees no light…. “Surely if I were a child of God, this would not happen.” Oh, say not so thou who are walking in darkness. The best of God’s saints have their nights. The dearest of his children have to walk through a weary wilderness. There is not a Christian who has enjoyed perpetual happiness. There is no believer who can always sing a song of joy….We need clouds and darkness to exercise our faith — to cut off self-dependence and make us put more faith in Christ and less in evidence, less in experience, less in feeling. The best of God’s children — I repeat it again for the comfort of those suffering depression of spirit — have their nights. …

I think when a man says, “I never doubt,” it is quite time for us to doubt him. It is quite time for us to begin to say, Ah, poor soul, I am afraid you are not on the road at all, or if you were, you would see so many things in yourself and so much glory in Christ — more than you deserve — that you would be so much ashamed of yourself as even to say, It is too good to be true.