"An Utter Recklessness of Trust"

After the conference, I happened to pull a book by Hannah Whitall Smith (published in 1870) of my shelf and start reading it. To see how it echoed and built on the teachings of the conference was uplifting and a gift from the Lord that I treasure.


"Because we do not feel God has taken us in hand, we cannot believe He has. We
put feelings first, faith second and fact last although God's invariable rule
in everything is, fact first, faith second and feeling last of all. ...


"Faith is simply believing God. As sight is only seeing, so faith is only
believing. .... Try to imagine yourself acting in your human relations as you
do in your spiritual relations. You would not eat, for the cook might have
poisoned your food. You would be compelled to walk, lacking trust in
conveyances, roads, drivers. You would believe not friends business agents or
the newspaper. You would say, 'I don't believe there's a Queen or Ireland, for I
have seen neither and I believe in nothing except what I have seen and felt and
touched. ' Folly!...


"I remember early in my Christian life, being stirred to the depths by an appeal
in a volume of old sermons that all who loved the Lord Jesus should show how
worthy he was of being trusted by the steadfastness of their own faith in Him.
I suddenly glimpsed the privilege and glory of being called to walk in paths so dark only an utter recklessness of trust would be possible...

"Be patient, trustful and wait. A time of darkness is only permitted that 'the
trial of your faith -- being much more precious than of gold that perisheth -- though
it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the
appearing of Jesus Christ.' "