Backsliding is a gradual process
Illustration★★★★I know quite well that there are some people who grow gray in a night, but one does not meet them often. There are some sins which wither and blight and blast a life as with a lightning flash. But they are not the common sins. That is not the commonest experience. There are some trees which are overblown in one great blast of the winter’s gale. But the real cause of their overthrow is found if you examine the trunk, in which the process known as dry rot has been going on for a long time. The storm only makes visible that which has been going on destructively without announcement. Back- sliding is a gradual process.
The point
Backsliding is not typically a sudden crisis but a gradual decline like dry rot in a tree—destructive processes working invisibly before the storm makes them visible.