This idea can be carried a step further. An individual who was despairing over his myriad nisyonos was told by an adom gadol: “Even if you never seem to win and it’s all failure after abysmal failure, the very fact that you so desperately wish to be pure should be whispering in your ear, ‘Rejoice! Rejoice over your spiritually attuned and refined ratzon! It’s showing itself in your abhorrence of the ugly and in your yearning to gravitate towards a life of purity.”
“Upstairs” they clearly heard your unspoken expressions of disgust as your insides were jarred by an immodest sighting. They timed and measured to a fraction of a second how you turned your face away in disdain. They perceived how your heart and soul were yearning to become a more elevated person. And they lovingly considered how you had hoped and strived to bring in today’s shmiras einayim score at something more respectable.
Intensifying those passionate cravings – over and over again – for wholesome, clean living is, in itself, an achievement. No audible round of applause is heard while we keep struggling, but Hashem hears the yearnings in our soul as the sweetest symphony.
Our comfort lies in the knowledge that if a person is single-mindedly focused on being pure, he is certain to succeed. If we really hope for Hashem to save us from what seems to be engulfing us, then that hope alone is enough to bring malachim to our rescue. The gemara in Makkos (10b) makes it clear: “In the way one wishes to go, so is he led.” The Maharsha informs us that it is malachim, no less, that lead a person in the direction of his own leanings.