From "The Ragamuffin Gospel", by Brennan Manning...
"Just as the sunrise of faith requires the sunset of our former unbelief, so the dawn of trust requires letting go of our craving spiritual consolations and tangible reassurances. Trust at the mercy of the response it receives is a bogus trust. All is uncertainty and anxiety. In trembling insecurity the disciple pleads for proofs from the Lord that his affection is returned. If he does not receive them, he is frustrated and starts to suspect that his relationship with Jesus is all over or that it never even existed.
If he does receive consolation, he is reassured but only for a time. He presses for further proofs--each one less convincing than the one that went before. In the end the need to trust dies of pure frustration. What the disciple has not learned is that tangible reassurances, however valuable they may be, cannot create trust, sustain it, or guarantee any certainty of its presence. Jesus calls us to hand over our autonomous self in unshaken confidence. When the craving for reassurances is stifled, trust happens."
("she" was changed to "he", but obviously this applies to both genders)
