The Insult of Trying to Trust
TRYING to have faith in God is pretty poor business for any Christian to be engaged in. Yet it seems to be a sadly common experience. An earnest Christian woman whose whole life of fruitful service bespeaks her faith, and who is weighed down just now by a heavy burden, writes to a friend about it, "I am sure it will work for good—and so I strive to have faith in God, and wait." She does not put the friend to whom she writes on any such low plane as that. She has faith in her friend; she knows that her friend will help her in every way possible; but of God she can not be so sure; He is not to be depended upon as her earthly friend is; yet she will try to trust God, and do her best to give Him as much trust as she finds He may deserve. How long would most human acquaintances stand such treatment? If we asked an acquaintance to do something for us, and he promised that he would, and we should then answer, "Well, I'm going to try to believe that you mean what you say, and that you'll do what you say,"—how many more commissions would he be likely to accept from us? That is the way we treat God when we heave a sigh and say we are striving to trust Him. God forgives us the wound and the insult; but God himself, by the ordering of His own laws of faith and prayer, can never do as much for those who distrust Him in their "striving" as for those who treat Him at least as well as they treat their every-day friends on earth.—S. S. Times.