Parenting & Family Quote by William Gurnall

Comfort, Gurnall insists, is a poor yardstick for spiritual maturity. The line reads like a gentle correction to a predictable human reflex: if I feel soothed, God must be especially pleased with me; if I feel dry or tested, I must be failing. He grants that “great comforts” can be real evidence of grace, then undercuts the ego’s favorite leap: they don’t certify rank, intensity, or “degree.” In a Puritan world where believers constantly audited their souls for signs of election, this is pastoral triage, not mere theology.

The image does the heavy lifting. A child in the lap isn’t there because they’re impressive; they’re there because they’re small, shaky, or in need. Gurnall reframes spiritual consolation as a form of divine accommodation: tenderness aimed at weakness, not a medal for strength. That metaphor quietly rebukes competitive piety, the habit of turning private experience into public hierarchy. If consolation can be a crutch, then boasting about it becomes as absurd as bragging you needed to be carried.

The subtext is bracing: the strongest faith may look less “warm” because it can walk. Gurnall also offers an antidote to despair for the scrupulous and the depressed, those who read every cold season as abandonment. The lap is not a leaderboard; it’s a mercy seat. He’s protecting believers from misreading God’s kindness as God’s favoritism, and from mistaking emotional intensity for spiritual depth.