Seeking God’s Guidance in Faith in the Simple Things

In the last couple of days we saw that even eating and sleeping must be done through faith. At this point I can imagine a reader saying, “You have spoken about simple, familiar acts such as eating and sleeping and the part that faith can play in these. But the problems of our modern world are much greater and more complex than simple things like eating and sleeping. What solution can faith offer to our great national and international problems today?”

Yes, it is certainly true that we are confronted with vast and intricate problems – social, economic, political. We must acknowledge this. But let us take the truth one step further: There is no human mind and no human wisdom that can comprehend all these problems in their entirety, much less work out solutions to them all. If we must depend solely upon human wisdom for the solutions, then the outlook is hopeless.

But faith is always united with humility. True faith causes man to acknowledge his own limitations. True faith distinguishes between those things which are within the province of man and those which are within the province of God.

Someone has stated the relationship between man’s part and God’s part in the life of faith as follows: “You do the simple thing; God will do the complicated thing. You do the small thing; God will do the great thing. You do the possible thing; God will do the impossible thing.”

God’s simple plan for living, “The just shall live by faith,” still makes sense today. Let man do his part – let man by faith and obedience seek God’s guidance and blessing in the simple acts of daily life, in the familiar relationships of home and community. There will come a relief and a release from the strains, the tensions, the physical, mental and moral breakdown of modern life. And in the vast areas of the modern world that are outside man’s comprehension and control, God will move in response to man’s faith and will overrule the affairs of nations in a way that will amaze us by its effectiveness.

This simple principle, “The just shall live by faith,” which has twice changed the course of world history, still contains today the power to revolutionise the life and destiny of any modern nation that will apply it. This is still God’s answer to man’s problems, God’s provision for man’s needs: “The just shall live by faith.”

Of all man’s faculties and capacities, there is only one by which he can solve the problems that confront him today – one human faculty which is potentially greater than all his material and scientific achievements – and that is man’s faith in God.

In order to comprehend the latent possibilities of man’s faith in God, it is necessary to look at two statements made by the Lord Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry.

“But Jesus looked at them and said to them, ‘With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” (Matt. 19:26)

“Jesus said to him, ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.’” (Mark 9:23)

Set these two statements side by side: “with God all things are possible,” and “all things are possible to him who believes.” This means that through faith God’s possibilities become ours. Faith is the channel by which God’s omnipotence becomes available to man. The limit of what faith can receive is the limit only of what God Himself can do.