Faith and unbelief

Important lessons are given by this alternation of the two ideas of faith and unbelief, obedience and disobedience. Disobedience is the root of unbelief. Unbelief is the mother of further disobedience. Faith is voluntary submission within a person’s own power. If faith is not exercised, the true cause lies deeper than all intellectual reasons. It lies in the moral aversion of human will and in the pride of independence, which says, “who is Lord over us? Why should we have to depend on Jesus Christ?” As faith is obedience and submission, so faith breeds obedience, but unbelief leads on to higher-handed rebellion. With dreadful reciprocity of influence, the less one trusts, the more he disobeys; the more he disobeys, the less he trusts.
Alexander Maclaren

In biblical counseling it is called the "downward spiral" or the "upward path". When we neglect or refuse God's perfect Word and ways we find that our lives will follow this downward spiral, all the time God is pleading with us to repent and to come to Him for life. The act of neglecting or refusing is found in our rebellious souls, more directly in our wills. The ironic thing is that God's will is always good, perfect and pleasing (Rom 12:2), yet we desire to live our lives in such a way as to reject that so we can be the god of our own little depraved world, as Paul says:

Rom 1:25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever...

The answer is the same today, yesterday and tomorrow...submit yourself unto Jesus Christ and He will give you life. For in you is nothing good, that is in your flesh (Rom 7:18) but in Christ the fullness of God dwells (Col 1:19) and abiding in Him there is an abundant life.