Fog & Faith

Here is a story of faith:

“We had George Muller of Bristol on board,” said the captain. “I had been on the bridge for twenty-four hours and never left it and George Muller came to me and said, “Captain, I have come to tell you I must be in Quebec on Saturday afternoon.” “It is impossible,” I said. “Then very well, if your ship cannot take me, God will find some other way. I have never broken an engagement in fifty-seven years; let us go down into the chart room and pray.”
“I looked at that man of God and thought to myself, “What lunatic asylum can that man have come from, for I never heard of such a thing as this?” “Mr. Muller,” I said, “do you know how dense this fog is?”
““No,” he replied, “my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God who controls every circumstance of my life.” He knelt down and he prayed one of the most simple prayers. When he had finished I was going to pray, but he put his hand on my shoulder and told me not to pray. “As you do not believe He will answer, and as I believe He has, there is no need whatever for you to pray about it.”
“I looked at him and George Muller said, “Captain, I have known my Lord for fifty-seven years and there has never been a single day when I have failed to get an audience with the King. Get up, Captain, and open the door and you will find the fog has gone.”
“I got up and the fog indeed was gone, and on that Saturday afternoon George Muller kept his promised engagement.”


Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc., 1996).

Believe!

I was reading good old Oswald tonight and saw tomorrow’s reading. I couldn’t help myself and read it.

Reminded me of Gideon: “. . . the weaker and feebler you are, the better.”

It took me back to thinking about how much I am depending on God. There are days that I feel like I am truly placing myself in HIS hands. Other days, I feel less so. As John believed, it comes down to one question, “Do you believe?”

If we believe, then what does that mean? One premise leads to another. If we believe THEN . . . and because we believe that THEN we believe . . . and because we believe that THEN God does have HIS very best for me in store. Because I am worth it. I am worthy. Through God I am. In the middle of not knowing where we are going and what we are doing, I know that I must believe and follow that believe to where it takes us.

We are called to believe. We are called to obey.

We don’t have to know the why. We don’t have to know the answers.

We do have to believe.

Believe it.




“Ye cannot serve the Lord. Joshua 24:19.

Have you the slightest reliance on any thing other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural virtue, any set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any particular in this new proposition which God has put before you? That is what the probing means. It is quite true to say—‘I cannot live a holy life’; but you can decide to let Jesus Christ make you holy. “Ye cannot serve the Lord God”—but you can put yourself in the place where God’s Almighty power will work through you. Are you sufficiently right with God to expect Him to manifest His wonderful life in you?
“Nay, but we will serve the Lord.” It is not an impulse, but a deliberate commitment. You say—‘But God can never have called me to this, I am too unworthy, it can’t mean me.’ It does mean you, and the weaker and feebler you are, the better. The one who has something to trust in is the last one to come anywhere near saying—‘I will serve the Lord.’
We say—‘If I really could believe!’ The point is—If I really will believe. No wonder Jesus Christ lays such emphasis on the sin of unbelief. “And He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.” If we really believed that God meant what He said—what should we be like! Dare I really let God be to me all that He says He will be?”


Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest : Selections for the Year, NIV edition. (Westwood, NJ: Barbour and Co., 1993).