June 21

“You cannot very well trust in doctrines or plans no matter how much you may believe in them, but you can always trust in the Lord, whether or not you understand His plans or the doctrines concerning Him.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, God is Enough, 6/21

This is an important distinction.  Too often we put our faith in God’s Word and then come away confused and dazed when things don’t work out the way we think they should.  The reason this happens is that God’s Word may not apply to us in any given moment--those verses where God promises something to someone that we want, too.  I know because there have been many times when I felt that what I wanted came under God’s perfect plan for a woman--so since I’m a woman there was no reason for God not to answer the same prayer for me.  Now I understand that it is God Himself that I’m to trust--not His promises or anything else.  God Himself alone is trustworthy and because He is God He knows what is best for me now and in the future.  God did not create me and then drop me off here on Earth to be picked up at the end of my life and carted off to Heaven.  He created me for a relationship with Him in eternity AND right now.  I do not need to understand all the whys and wherefores if I’m trusting God Himself.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.”  Proverbs 3:5

April 1

“My Tender Father, show me the others in my world as you see them.  Show me if I’ve been irritable, or critical, just because I don’t understand your dealings in their lives.  And let me come over to your side, in how I treat them today.”  David Hazard’s Prayer, Hannah Whitall Smith, Safe Within Your Love, pg. 129

I woke up feeling irritable this morning.  I didn’t need to be shown why.  I knew full well.  As I wrote it all down in my journal I felt overwhelmed by my failure to live the life of Christ in me.  I asked God to deliver me from this failure but could see no deliverance awaiting me.  I read through several of the morning’s devotions looking for the key that would unlock Self’s grip on me.  Later, when I returned to finish my devotional reading I noticed I was feeling better just because I’d been distracted from Self for awhile because of my motherly duties.  Then the key was handed to me in David Hazard’s prayer at the end of Hannah’s devotion on the exchanged life.  I had come to realize that while I could accept whatever God had for me directly from His Hand, I was having a great difficulty accepting “second causes” as Hannah calls them.  These trials and sufferings, when brought to me by human hands, seemed more than I could bear.  As soon as I admitted this, God showed me that not all “second causes” were for me.  Sometimes because others are not trusting their lives to God their behavior will affect my life.  It’s in those times that God is teaching ME to trust Him even more.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.”  Proverbs 3:5