I hold firmly to the truth of Scripture—that the Lord is wholly good, kind, and always worthy of trust. Yet I am learning that there can be a difference between believing these truths and living them out consistently, especially when past wounds resurface. In those moments, my faith may falter, not because I have lost it, but because the Lord is gently inviting me to grow deeper in trust and dependence on Him.
In God’s grace I opened a book with excerpts from the diary of George Muller, a German-born saint of old, who served in Bristol, England in the 19th Century. He is the one who started modern orphanages. Previously, the orphanages that existed could only benefit those children from wealthy backgrounds who had endowments from their relatives to be cared for. The poor had no access to such care. This distressed Muller, who sought to be used of God to do the work of caring for poor orphans for the glory of God. Without any endowment to supply for the needs of these children, Muller prayed to God and trusted Him to give him the grace, wisdom, strength and provision necessary for this work. God in His abundant grace answered Muller’s prayers and through this man’s faith and faithfulness abundantly provided for many poor orphans.
As I have been reading of Muller’s walk with the Lord through his service, I came across the following paragraph that has greatly challenged my view and practice of faith:
“The natural mind is prone to reason when we ought to believe, to be at work when we ought to be quiet, or to go our own way when we ought to steadily walk in God’s ways. . . But each time we work a deliverance of our own, we find it more difficult to trust in God. At last we give way entirely to our natural reasoning, and unbelief prevails.
How different, if one waits for God’s own time and looks to him for help and deliverance! When at last help comes, after many hours of prayer and after much faith and patience, how sweet it is! What a reward the soul receives for trusting in God and waiting patiently for His deliverance! If you have never walked in this path of obedience before, do so now. You will experience the sweetness of the joy that faith brings.”[1]
While reflecting on this, I realized that my previous bad experiences had led me to conclude that while God might be good and kind, He was not good and kind to me. I had had expectations that I felt He had disappointed greatly and I felt betrayed and abandoned. I did not realize that it was not the Lord I had trusted but people – myself and other fallen people who in keeping with their sinful nature fail. Because of this, I learnt to disbelieve God and think lowly of Him, while learning to depend on myself and thinking highly of myself.
As the Lord continues to restore me to wholeness and growth in trust in Him alone, I can see just how much damage my previous experiences and justifications had done. They served to diminish my view of God, weaken my faith and strengthen my fleshy reasoning. I came to trust even more in myself and less in the Lord. I grew my unbelief as Muller puts it.
But all is not lost! As long as there is faith as small as a mustard seed, there is hope for it to grow and bear fruit! I must salvage the seed of my faith from the hard rock of doubt and mere natural reasoning and sow it in the good soil of the truth of God’s character proven again and again in the testimony of the Scriptures and the lives of His saints. I must then water this seed with prayer and patience in full expectation that the Lord will do that which is for my good and His glory! So help me God!
The challenge is that I want this whole process of growing and firming up my faith to be easy! I want to put in little to no effort, but glean a great harvest! But Jesus commands, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
. . . Jesus makes it clear that living in His kingdom is going to be a taxing endeavor.
As He nears the end of His Great Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes it clear that living in His kingdom is going to be a taxing endeavor. He has purposefully made it hard. The wide gate and easy road lead to death, but the road to life is hard and starts through a narrow gate. The way that Jesus offers is against what we are naturally drawn to, therefore we cannot come upon it by our own strength or wisdom. We are required to lay down our flesh and our way of doing things; we must lay aside our natural thinking and ways. We can then ask Him to transform our minds and hearts by the power of His Spirit so that we can humbly accept His way of thinking and doing things. It is only then that we can patiently wait for Him to deliver us in His grace and great strength.
Join me in praying, “Lord help my unbelief, transform me by the power of your Spirit to discard my natural reasoning and submit to your thoughts and ways. Grant me grace to trust you and wait upon you in prayer and patience in the confidence that You will work out what is for my good and Your glory. Amen!”
[1] Muller, George. 1985. The Autobiography of George Muller. Whitaker House. p220-221
