Your ShelfYour Projects

PERFECT TRUST IN GOD

10%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 23, 1900

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 77, No. 4.

Read the full edition

PERFECT TRUST IN GOD.

By Asa Smith

ASA SMITH.
(Piedmont, S. Dak.)
“I AM doing my best to help myself; but when I can’t, the Lord can, so I just have to trust, that’s all there is to do.”
Then we are to understand that you would not trust the Lord at all if you could avoid it. Really, then, how much do you trust God?
How many are making the same mistake! We look upon the Lord as some kind friend who will help us any time we ask him; but we don’t like to be “bothering him all the time.”
But the Lord wishes us to come to him all the time. He is full of goodness and mercy, and takes pleasure in supplying all our needs. Satan would have us think that we can do some little things without “bothering” the Lord. There is where self gets in.
Let us not listen to such reasonings. Let us go to the Lord with everything. Let us not for a moment entertain the thought that we can do anything without his help. Too long have we been “trying to do all we can to help ourselves, and trusting the Lord to do the rest.” Let us trust him first to do it all, and then yield ourselves as instruments for his using. Too long have we been trusting in our farm, our school, our position, or our money. When we can see the way clear, we do not trust the Lord: we trust him only in our extremity.
“Now the just shall live by faith.” But faith is not sight; therefore when we are living by sight, we are not living by faith. “But I can’t see how just believing God’s word will supply the necessities of life.” No; you can’t see how. If you could see, you would not have faith; for “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Then let us go to God with all our cares and trials and perplexities, and ask him for wisdom. But let us “ask in faith;” for the doubtful and unbelieving need not “think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.”
“I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou Shouldst lead me on; I loved to choose and see my path, but now, Lead thou me on! Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step’s enough for me.”