Hannah Whitall Smith Quotes on Trust, Surrender and Comfort
Hannah Whitall Smith wrote for Christians who were tired of trying hard and getting nowhere. Her books are warm and plain, and they're full of short sentences that stick. The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life alone has given preachers and devotional writers quotations for a century and a half.
Plenty of Hannah Whitall Smith quotes circulate online with no source, and some are misquoted. Every quotation below is copied exactly from her books in TheWay Library, with the book and chapter it comes from, so you can read each one in its setting. For her life story, see who was Hannah Whitall Smith. For a guide to her books, see Hannah Whitall Smith books.
The secret: trust
Her whole teaching rests on one division of labor between God and the believer.
To state it in brief, I would say, that man's part is to trust, and God's part is to work…
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, God's Side and Man's Side
You have found Jesus as your Saviour from the penalty of sin, but you have not found Him as your Saviour from its power.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Is It Scriptural?
By a step of faith we get into Christ; by a process we are made to “grow up into Him in all things.”
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, God's Side and Man's Side
Let your souls lie down upon the couch of His sweet will, as your bodies lie down in their beds at night.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, The Life Defined
The Lord is our burden-bearer, and upon Him we must lay off every care.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Service
Leave it with the Lord; and remember that what you trust to Him, you must not worry over nor feel anxious about.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Service
What faith is
She refused to make faith mysterious. It's simply believing God.
For as sight is only seeing, so faith is only believing.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Difficulties Concerning Faith
Your faith must not be a passive imbecility, but an active energy.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Difficulties Concerning Faith
Faith in the Bible sense, therefore, is simply trust or confidence in God.
Every-Day Religion, The Law of Faith
Always and in everything comfort must follow faith, and can never precede it.
The God of All Comfort, The God of All Comfort
There is a great difference between saying “The Lord will give,” and “The Lord hath given.”
The God of All Comfort, The Shout of Faith
The will and the feelings
This is her most practical teaching. Feelings rise and fall; the will decides.
As usual, we put feeling first, and faith second, and the fact last of all.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Difficulties Concerning Consecration
The will is like a wise mother in a nursery; the feelings are like a set of clamoring, crying children.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Difficulties Concerning the Will
It is not the feelings of the man God wants, but the man himself.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Difficulties Concerning the Will
The true Kingdom of God within us can only be set up in the region of our will.
Every-Day Religion, The Will in Religion
Temptation, doubt and failure
She was gentle with struggling believers, and firm with their excuses.
Strong temptations are often more a sign of great grace, than of little grace.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Difficulties Concerning Temptations
Sin makes an easy prey of a discouraged soul; so that we fall often from the very fear of having fallen.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Difficulties Concerning Temptations
Our sin is no reason for ceasing to trust, but only an unanswerable argument why we must trust more fully than ever.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Difficulties Concerning Failures
The highway of holiness is not a place, but a way.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Difficulties Concerning Failures
Discouragement flies where faith appears; and, vice versa, faith flies when discouragement appears.
The God of All Comfort, Discouragement
Grace, not law
In the first the Christian is a servant, and works for hire; in the second he is a son, and works for love.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Bondage or Liberty
Legal Christians do not deny Christ; they only seek to add something to Christ.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Bondage or Liberty
We are not commanded to be followers of God in order to become His children, but because we know we are His children.
Every-Day Religion, That Ye May Know
No one can be one with Christ who is not Christ-like.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Divine Union
From the memorial of her son Frank, on what he was taught as a boy:
He was taught that good works must follow, and not precede, the new birth; that they were the results of this new birth, and not the cause of it.
The Record of a Happy Life, chapter III
Knowing God as He is
In her later books she came back again and again to one point: most of our trouble comes from wrong ideas about God.
God was a terror to me, until I began to see Him in the face of Jesus Christ, when He became an unmixed joy.
The Unselfishness of God, Introduction
The true ground for peace and comfort is only to be found in the sort of God we have.
The God of All Comfort, What Is His Name?
Christ came into the world to save sinners, not good people, and your unworthiness is your greatest claim for His salvation.
The God of All Comfort, The God of All Comfort
In the past I had looked upon God's will as being against me, now I had found out that it was for me.
The Unselfishness of God, The Lovely Will of God
The last and greatest lesson that the soul has to learn is the fact that God, and God alone, is enough for all its needs.
The God of All Comfort, God Is Enough
Trouble and comfort
She'd buried four of her seven children. She wrote about trouble from experience.
Everything becomes a “chariot of salvation” when God rides upon it.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, The Chariots of God
God's chastenings, therefore, are for purifying, not for vengeance.
Every-Day Religion, The Meaning of Trouble
God may be hidden from us, but we can never be hidden from Him.
Every-Day Religion, The Hidden God
Often, in order to give us what we need, the Lord is obliged to keep from us what we want.
The God of All Comfort, Jehovah
We cannot, it is true, give thanks for the misery, but we can give thanks to the Lord in the misery, just as Jonah did.
The God of All Comfort, Thanksgiving Versus Complaining
The soul that gives thanks can find comfort in everything; the soul that complains can find comfort in nothing.
The God of All Comfort, Thanksgiving Versus Complaining
Where to read more Hannah Whitall Smith
Start with The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, where most of these lines come from. If you need comfort more than instruction, go to The God of All Comfort. All her books are on the Hannah Whitall Smith author page, and our reading guide explains what's in each one.