"Faith is. . . the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1
True faith drops its letter in the post office box, and lets it go. Distrust holds on to the corner of it, and wonders that the answer never comes. I have some letters in my desk that have been written for weeks, but there was some slight uncertainty about the address or the contents, so they are yet unmailed. They have not done me or anybody else any good yet. They will never accomplish anything until I let them out of my hands and trust them to the postman and the mail.
This is the way with true faith. It hands its case over to God, and then He works. That is a fine verse in the Thirty-seventh Psalm: "Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass." But He never worketh till we commit. Faith is a recieving, or still better, a taking of God's proffered gifts. We may believe, and come, and commit, and rest; but we will not fully realise all our blessings until we begin to recieve and come into the attitude of abiding and taking. FROM DAYS OF HEAVEN UPON EARTH
Dr. Payson, when a young man, wrote as follows, to an aged mother, burdened with intense anxiety on account of the condition of her son: "You give yourself too much trouble about him. After you have prayed for him, as you have done, and commited him to God, should you not cease to feel anxious respecting him? The command, 'Be careful for nothing,' is unlimited; and so is the expression, 'Casting all your care upon him'. If we cast our burdens upon each another, can they continue to press upon us? If we bring them away with us from the throne of grace, it is evident that we do not leave them there. With respect to myself, I have made this one test of my prayers: If after commiting anything to God, I can, like Hannah, come away and have my mind no more sad, my heart no more pained and anxious, I look upon it as one proof that I have prayed in faith; but, if I bring away my burden, I conclude that faith was not in exercise."
Devotional exerpts from Streams in the Desert by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman
Published by Zondervan Publishing Company