Trusting God Rather Than a Child of God

It is hard for us to learn that our faith must rest on God, rather than on God’s promises, or on God’s word, or on our prayers to God in our need, or on our best work in his service according to his commandment and the indications of his providences. It is because God is God that we should trust him utterly, and have confidence in his promises, and prize his word, and pray as he invites, and work as he directs. Back of all that represents God is God himself, and he is to be trusted above all. An occasion when I had reason to emphasize the duty of trusting God rather than a child of God brought out this truth more clearly to my own mind.

A troubled Christian mother sent for me in an hour of dire distress. Her only son Long Li brary

Ulustrative Answers to Prayer

had been for a while wayward and dissipated. She had prayed for him earnestly and constantly. After a while he had been

brought into the church, and had become an active Christian worker. This gave her joy unspeakable. But now he had fallen back again. He had seemingly lost his faith. He had left his home, and enlisted in the navy, and had sailed to the far East. His mother was broken-hearted and well-nigh in despair.

I asked her if she had less reason to have faith in God, as she now prayed for her boy, than before. She said that, of course, she couldn’t have as much ground of faith while her son was a reprobate as when he was active in Christian work.

“Ts the difference in God or in your boy?” I asked,

“The difference is in my boy,” she said, “and that is what’s troubling me.”

“On whom did your faith rest when
your boy was doing best?”

“On God, of course.”
100

Trusting God rather than a Child of God

“And has God changed?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why is your faith lessened?”

“Because of my poor boy’s failure.”

“Then you are looking at your boy as if he were the ground of your faith, instead of at God.”

“Do you mean to suggest,” said the anxious mother, “that even now, while my poor boy is in his present state, I can look up to God, and pray for my boy as trustfully as I prayed while he was active in Christian work? Do you mean to suggest that?”

“If your faith rests on God, you can pray to him just as confidently now as ever for whatever he can do for you or your boy. But you must look at God, and not at your boy, while you pray,” I said.

“Then I’ll do that,” said the anxious mother; and she turned again to God in need and in trust.

Two months or so after that, that mother

sent for me again. She had received a Io!I

etter from. hes r son

heart. It was from the eT he was o the Chinese seas. It was a letter full of ce penitence and of good purposes, and of hope and trust; and it told a touching mt story.; sip About the time when the otiee turned anew to God in her New England home with a prayer of fresh faith for her wander- “ing boy, — before, of course, he could have had any word from her about it, — as he F

was on the deck, one sunny afternoon, in those far-off Chinese waters, a call seemed to come to him from God summoning him to turn from his evil courses to his better self, and to God and to his old faith in God; anda sense of his sin and his need came over him. Overpowered by his feelings, he went down into the forecastle and prostrated himself before God, confessing his sins, and asking for pardon and help to do differently. And now he wrote to his mother as a penitent child, asking her to

pray for him, and telling her of his sorrow 102

Trusting God rather than a Child of God

and his new purpose of living a new life by God’s help.

That glad-hearted mother was ready now to perceive and to say that it is ever better to trust in God than to trust in any child of God, even her own child. That’s a lesson for all of us to learn and to value.

A clergyman in Eastern Massachusetts, whom I knew well about that time, told me of a good Scotch mother in his parish who had learned this precious lesson, and who found comfort in it. She had given her boy to God at his birth, and she felt that she and hers were in the everlasting covenant with God. Faithfully she trained her boy, but he went astray. While sad-hearted over this, she did not despair; for her faith rested on God, not on her boy.

Going to God with her loving, trustful heart, she said in confident assurance, — an assurance that God honors in a child of his, — “Lord, I am thine, and Johnnie’s mine, and we are thine. Lord, thy Johnnie’s going astray. Bring him back, Lord; in 1 the Great Day his blood will I 2 at thine hand.” =

will never fail of its pores Saher a - S, troubled father came to Jesus with his a demon-possessed child, and asked for his — So help, Jesus said, “If thou canst [believe]!: All things are possible to him that be- — lieveth [for his as well as for himself ]” (Mark 9: 17-25). Then that father cried out, “I believe [for my child and for myself]; help thou mine unbelief.” And the needed help was given. That is God’s way with his children.