Don’t let anyone tell you that your successes, however few and far between, have been buried under an avalanche of your seemingly inexcusable setbacks. This is absolutely not true! Your defending angel goes searching and if he finds the merest trace of kedusha, he will caress it, dress it in gorgeous robes, and present it before the One Who is the Source of all holiness.
In the Heavenly accounting, there is no ledger that sets out on the one side a column of all our mitzvos and on the other side our aveiros, with the latter neatly cancelling out the former as would a calculator.
Mitzvos and aveiros don’t stand on an equal footing at all. A mitzvah’s reward is eternal while the punishment process for aveiros is for a limited time only. Hashem will never deduct a mitzvah from our account to balance out an aveira. Though we may stumble, no vengeful red pen draws a cruel line through our beloved, beautiful mitzvos. They stand at our right hand and escort us for all eternity.
Even when the likelihood of success seems one in a thousand, it would be absurd to slacken off. From Shamayim we keep getting rewarded for resistance and resilience. We are assured that a single instance of standing unbowed in the face of fiery passion will cause a tremendous stir in the Upper Worlds. The forces of evil are dismissed while the forces of purity are upraised, and there is great nachas ruach before Hashem.
Even if one maintains that his most wrenching efforts will only slightly dent his lustful ways, no detail is too insignificant for Hashem to notice, and every effort will be unendingly rewarded.
To use an allegory from the world of commerce: After a business trip abroad with the potential for fabulous profits, the weary traveller arrived home beaming. He was away from home for several months and made his fortune. Ironically, a peek at his records revealed that his newfound wealth was, in fact, the result of just one quick transaction. His other dealings were actually costly mistakes. Yes, he could perhaps have made a far greater fortune, but at least he knew he came home a millionaire. Looking back, he definitely pulled off a highly successful venture overall.
How dear it is to Hashem when we conquer our evil inclination. Be it just one instant in a whole day when we slammed down the lid on all the glitter, it is in no way overshadowed by any of our previous blunders.