And the Lord is steadily, unswervingly doing His part, and we are constantly failing in ours.

The Lord in His loving kindness pinches--that is, reminds us--and we in our stupid selfishness do not use His reminders.
As an example of making our faults positive and our effort to conquer them negative, one very common form is found in a woman I know, who has times of informing her friends quite seriously and with apparent regret of her very wrong attitudes of mind.

She tells how selfish she is and she gives examples of the absolute selfishness of her thoughts when she is appearing to do unselfish things.

She tells of her efforts to do better and confesses what she believes to be the absolute futility of her effort.

At first I was quite taken in by these confessions, and attracted by what seemed to be a clear understanding of herself and her own motives, but after a little longer acquaintance with her, made the discovery, which was at first surprising to me, that her confessions of evil came just as much from conceit as if she had been standing at the mirror admiring her own beauty.