Those who are readiest to trust God...

God knows just when to withhold from us any visible sign of encouragement, and when to grant us such a sign. How good it is that we may trust Him anyway! When all visible evidences that He is remembering us are withheld, that is best; He wants us to realize that His Word, His promise of remembrance, is more substantial and dependable than any evidence of our senses. When He sends the visible evidence, that is well also; we appreciate it all the more after we have trusted Him without it. Those who are readiest to trust God without other evidence than His Word always receive the greatest number of visible evidences of His love.
...CG Trumbull image

Leave it all...

Leave it all in the Hands that were wounded for you.

...Elisabeth Elliot image

No difficulties in your case can baffle him...

He does not need to transplant us into a different field, but right where we are, with just the circumstances that surround us, he makes his sun to shine and his dew to fall upon us, and transforms the very things that were before our greatest hindrances into the chiefest and most blessed means of our growth. No difficulties in your case can baffle him, no dwarfing of your growth in years that are past, no apparent dryness of your inward springs of life, no crookedness or deformity in any of your past development, can in the least mar the perfect work that he will accomplish, if you will only put yourselves absolutely into his hands and let him have his own way with you. ...Hannah Whitall Smith image

Look to Jesus and believe...

Keep your eye steadily fixed on the infinite grandeur of Christ's finished work and righteousness. Look to Jesus and believe, look to Jesus and live! Nay, more; as you look to him, hoist your sails and buffet manfully the sea of life. Do not remain in the haven of distrust, or sleeping on your shadows in inactive repose, or suffering your frames and feelings to pitch and toss on one another like vessels idly moored in a harbor. The religious life is not a brooding over emotions, grazing the keel of faith in the shallows, or dragging the anchor of hope through the oozy tide mud as if afraid of encountering the healthy breeze. Away! With your canvas spread to the gale, trusting in Him, who rules the raging of the waters.
...JR Macduff image

We judge of things by their present appearances...

I can hardly recollect a single plan of mine, of which I have not since seen reason to be satisfied, that had it taken place in season and circumstance just as I proposed, it would, humanly speaking, have proved my ruin; or at least it would have deprived me of the greater good the Lord had designed for me. We judge of things by their present appearances, but the Lord sees them in their consequences, if we could do so likewise we should be perfectly of His mind; but as we cannot, it is an unspeakable mercy that He will manage for us, whether we are pleased with His management or not; and it is spoken of as one of his heaviest judgements, when He gives any person or people up to the way of their own hearts, and to walk after their own counsels. ...John Newton image

If we wholly trust an interest to God...

If we wholly trust an interest to God, we must keep our hands off it; and He will guard it for us better than him; fret not yourself because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked devices to pass. Things may seem to be going all wrong, but He knows as well as we; and He will arise in the right moment if we are really trusting Him so fully as to let Him work in His own way and time. There is nothing so masterly as inactivity in some things, and there is nothing so hurtful as restless working, for God has undertaken to work His sovereign will. AB Simpson Photo

You are leaving port...

You are leaving port under sealed orders 

and in a troubled period.

You cannot know whither you are going

or what you are to do.

But why not take the Pilot on board

who knows the nature of your sealed orders

from the outset,

and who will shape your entire voyage accordingly?

He knows the shoals and the sandbanks,

 the rocks and the reefs,

He will steer you safely into that celestial harbor

where your anchor will be cast for eternity.

Let His mighty nail-pierced hands hold the wheel,

 and you will be safe.

 ...Peter Marshall image

Casting all your care upon Him...

Casting all your care upon him—1 Peter 5:7

There are some things that God will not tolerate in us. We must leave them. Nehemiah would not talk with Sanballat about his charges and fears. He simply refused to have anything to do with the matter-even to take refuge in the temple to pray about it. How very few things we really have to do with in life. If we would only drop all the needless things and simply do the things that absolutely require our attention from morning till night, we would find what a small slender thread life is. But we string upon it a thousand imaginary beads and burden ourselves with cares and flurries that-if we had trusted more-would never have needed to preoccupy us. Wise indeed was the testimony of the dear old saint who said, in review of her past life, "I have had a great many troubles in my life, especially those that never came."

Trust and rest with heart abiding,
Like a birdling in its nest,
Underneath His feathers hiding,
Fold thy wings and trust and rest.
Trust and rest, trust and rest,
God is working for the best.
...AB Simpson

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