Sometimes it's almost too easy. You can pray everyday. Read your Bible. Maybe you'll fast a couple of times a week. You can spot trouble a mile away because you're walking so close to God, you can hear all of His warnings. You can brace yourself for the impact of inevitable hardship, because you have God and God has you. You are so sure in your faith, so confident in the strength of your relationship, that you feel "stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord," (1 Corinthian 15:58). You can conquer all, proclaim yourself victorious, recite scriptures to encourage yourself and have the wisdom to even encourage your brother/sister in Christ. On a great day, you can even testify of His goodness to a complete stranger, building His kingdom one soul at a time.
Then there are these sometimes where, it feels incredibly, unexplainably hard. You try to understand why if "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able" (1 Corinthians 10:13), you feel like the walls are crashing in on you from all sides. The burden is suffocating you and you can't find the air to breathe, let alone get out an effective prayer. God can't be in this, so you look for other methods of relief and they kind of work. Even with the knowledge that your coping mechanisms don't line up with the Word of God, you justify their existence using this interesting combination of secular ideology and the crutch of your humanity. You forget for a moment that the rules everyone else plays by, don't make room for the life God calls us to lead. (Different post for a different day)
The "easy" and the "hard" are both two sides to a single coin. It's actually in the "hard" where you figure out the limits to your salvation, so that you may build up in those areas where you are weak. You find out (often foolishly) just how far you can go without being completely lost. The boundaries of your salvation are being tested.
Often times we feel like the "hard" means that we don't love God anymore.We fall back and out of love with Him because He couldn't possibly love us in this low.
We don't even love us in this low.
Hopefully, you'll believe me when I say that that's an absolutely ridiculous thought. Always remember that, "God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." (John 3:17) God knows that you're not perfect. He didn't come to beat you up about it, or to allow you to beat yourself up for not always being in the "easy" state of mind.
Life happens and sometimes it just plan ole sucks. However, if you are constantly work[ing] out your own salvation with fear and trembling. (Philippians 2:12), you allow these low moments to build your faith.
Don't get so stuck in maintaining the perception of salvation, "for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7) Maintaining only what looks like salvation in no way profits you, besides "For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." (Galatians 1:10). In other words, you are living this life to please Christ, the rest is just background noise.
Referenced Scriptures:
1 Corinthians 15:58: Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
1 Corinthians 10:13: There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
John 3:17: For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
Philippians 2:12: Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
1 Samuel 16:7: But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.
Galatians 1:10: For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
Philippians 2: 12, 13: Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.