This is from C.H. Spurgeon:
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[b]We Should Groan Because of Our Spiritual Condition[/b]
I can almost hear one professor saying, “Sir, I need no revival in my heart; I am everything I wish to be.” Down on your knees, my brethren! Down on your knees for him! He is the man that most needs to be prayed for. He says that he needs no revival in his soul, but he needs a revival of his humility at any rate. Those are in the best condition who, while they know they need reviving, yet feel their condition and groan under it.
Habakkuk knew how to groan about his spiritual condition. “O Lord,” said he, “revive thy work!” Alas, many of us lack revival, but few of us feel that we lack it. It is a blessed sign of life within when we know how to groan over our departures from the living God. It is easy to find hundreds who have departed, but you must count by ones those who know how to groan over their departures.
What have you been doing about your own spiritual declension? What has been your way of life? Have you been groaning every day? Have you been weeping every minute? I cannot understand how your piety can be of any brilliance if you can live without the sunlight of Christ and yet be happy. Christians will sometimes lose a sense of intimate fellowship with Jesus, but they will always groan and cry when they lose Him. The true believer, when he discovers that he needs revival, will not be happy. He will begin at once that incessant and continuous strain of cries and groans that will at last prevail with God and bring the blessing of revival down. He will, days and nights in succession, cry, “O Lord, revive Thy work!”
Let me mention some groaning times that will always occur to the Christian who needs revival:
1. A Christian will always groan when he looks upon what the Lord has done for him in the past. If he is what he should be, he will always weep when he remembers God’s lovingkindness of old. Whenever the soul has lost fellowship with Jesus, it cannot bear to think of “the banqueting house” without saying,
The peaceful hours I then enjoyed,
How sweet their memory still.
But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill.
When he hears a sermon that relates the glorious experience of the believer who is in a healthy state, he will put his hand upon his heart and say, “Such was my experience once, but those happy days are gone. O that I might again behold Him! O that I might once more see His face!” He will weep when he remembers how the Lord was precious to him, how He laid bare His heart and was pleased to fill his heart with the fullness of His love. Such times will be groaning times, when Christian remembers "the years of the right hand of the most High” (Ps. 77:10).
2. A Christian who lacks revival will groan during participation in religious exercises. He will go up to the house of God, but he will say to himself,
Ah! How changed! When I once went with the congregation to keep the holy day, every word was precious. When the song ascended, my soul had wings. When the prayer was offered, I could devoutly say amen. Now the preacher preaches as he did before, but the sermon is dry and dull to me. I know the fault is in myself. The song is just the same, but my heart is heavy. My harp strings are broken and I cannot sing.
The Christian will return from those blessed means of grace sighing and sobbing because he knows he needs revival.
The same will be especially true during the Lord’s Supper. When he sits at the table, the unrevived Christian will think,
O! What seasons I once had here! In breaking the bread and drinking the wine my Master was present, but now it is dry bread to me. It is tasteless wine with none of the sweetness of paradise in it. I drink, but all in vain. No thoughts of Christ. My heart will not rise. My soul cannot heave a thought halfway to Him!
And then the Christian will begin to groan again, “O Lord, revive Thy work!”
from: https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=article&aid=2564
