God can really get to work after we make two discoveries

When a man has made two discoveries, God can really get to work. It is after this that real life begins. The man is awake now.

The first discovery is when you realize that the idea that God had set us a sort of exam and that we might get good marks by deserving them has to be wiped out: the idea that we could perform our side of the contract and thus put God in our debt has to be wiped out.

The second discovery is when you realize that every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already.

The first discover is made when someone tries his level best to practice the Christian virtues and finds that he cannot. In other words, he discovers his bankruptcy. All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, 'You must do this. I can't.' God has been waiting for the moment at which you discover that there is no question of earning a pass mark in this exam or putting Him in your debt.

Concerning the second discovery: when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, 'Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.' Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child's present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.

[From C.S. Lewis, Chapter 21, Mere Christianity]