Is It Just My Imagination? - C. S. Lewis

We read of spiritual efforts, and our imagination makes us believe that, because we enjoy the idea of doing them, we have done them.

I am appalled to see how much of the change which I thought I had undergone lately was only imaginary.

The real work seems still to be done. It is so fatally easy to confuse an aesthetic appreciation of the spiritual life with the life itself--to dream that you have waked, washed, and dressed, and then to find yourself still in bed. 

(From a letter Lewis wrote to Arthur Greeves, June 15, 1930)

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I feel this way often, too -- that I have admired spiritual growth, sometimes in others, and voiced my desire for that same growth, and then been distracted by the daily issues of life, and let that desire drift away. I was just imagining, or pretended that I had obeyed the Holy Spirit and allowed God to work on the particular problem within my heart. I was not really in earnest - other things quickly got in the way - and I just moved on.

I rejoice in Philippians 1:4-6 -- In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

He is faithful to His part of the work. I need to be faithful to my part.