There is nothing in the world more simple than faith. Faith is dependence upon God-resting upon His word; and it is easier and simpler to depend upon God than upon self, because it is easier to let someone care for us than to take care of ourselves.
It is easier to rest upon something than to hold ourselves up. We have neither the strength nor wisdom to take care of ourselves, and when we attempt to do so the result is much worry and useless expenditure of effort, with failure at the end.
But God has invited us to let Him take care of us. His word says: "Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you." (Psalm 55:22)
And this burden includes "all your care." (1 Peter 5:7) And your care includes yourself.
Faith is the simplest means of knowledge. It is easier to learn a thing by being told by someone who knows, than to discover it by our own investigations. And we cannot know the truths which God tells us except by taking His word, for they lie altogether beyond the range of our human powers.
Through faith we understand these things although we cannot grasp them by any process of reason or experiment. And we know they are so, for faith is not blind, but sees them. We cannot reason out all the knowledge that we have, or that one mind can receive from another.
A look of the eye, a touch of the hand, can convey knowledge from heart to heart without reason being called into action,--knowledge which we would not trust reason to give us. Is it strange then that the Spirit of God can reveal to us deep mysteries by its action upon our hearts, by the simple means of faith?
But faith does not lead to idleness and supine indifference; quite the contrary. For while this would be the result of allowing one like ourselves to care for us in all things and tell us what we need to know, faith puts God within us, there to will and to work His pleasure; thus making our activity greater and wiser than when we moved in our own strength and wisdom.
Nor does it make us machines; for when our own wills cease to cooperate with God, He at once ceases to work in us.--Present Truth, September 13, 1894--Psalm 55:22.