PROVERBS III. 5, 6 217
our fields, or to the earthquake that converts our home into ruins. If God has no care for the concerns of this lower world, to acknow- ledge Him is useless ; if He acts in all things quite independently of our conduct, acknowledging Him is an impertinence. If He is not graciously disposed to accept our prayer and our trust, we may as well give them to the winds. In a word, in order to yield any acknowledgment of God which is worthy of the name, there must be that state of mind described by the Apostle as the condition of all acceptable coming to God — the belief " that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him."
(2) It follows that we must have communion with Him. — It is impossible that any one can really be acknowledging God — can be thinking of anything but worldly things — who does not pray by himself in secret, and pray every day regularly. Therefore, if any one knows that he does not take care to say his private prayers to God daily, there is at once a proof and a warning to him that he is not acknowledging God, that he is living without God in the world. He may be as industrious and quiet and respectable and kind-hearted as possible, but he is living without religion, as one who has only this life to pass through, and has no everlasting state waiting for him after he is dead. Private, secret prayer, offered to God daily and regularly, is the one great proof whether we believe and trust in God. If this proof is not there, then it is certain that, whatever we may say or do, we do not in our hearts believe God, or fear Him.
(3) Then, to acknowledge God in all our ways is honestly to admit to Him in each particular case that the matter is in His hands, and that it is to be ordered as He may see fit. We are pre- sumed to feel that God is actively present in all the concerns of this world, from the least to the greatest. Our own concerns, therefore, are neither too vast nor too trifling to engage His attention. Small as things may be in themselves, they are still parts of the great whole, links in the chain which girds the world \ and reaches up into the hand of God. The breath which stirs the seared leaf is a part of the mighty force which wheels the planets in their courses ; and He who keeps the spheres movino- in measured harmony numbers the hairs of our heads. Thus, to acknowledge God in all our ways is just to tell Him all this, it is just to advert emphatically to His presence as with us, to regard
2i8 TRUST IN THE LORD
each interest of our lives as placed in His hands, to view every event in the light that streams from His throne, always to feel, wherever we are or whatever we are doing, that we are in closest connexion with God, and to make a solemn acknowledgment of this.
(4) Along with all this there is to be a sincere dependence upon God for direction and help. — This is the practical bearing of our conscious reference to God. In the absence of this it is useless to believe in His supreme rule, or to advert to His universal presence. A devout regard to God, indeed, cannot but be pleasing in His sight, and it is a healthy state of soul. Whatever is right in itself cannot fail to be practically useful. But such a devout regard implies humble reliance upon His guidance. It is a kind of faith spread like a leaf of gold over our whole life; or, to change the figure, it is to live and breathe in the very atmosphere of prayer, though no formal petition may escape our lips. To acknowledge God in all our ways is to acknowledge His goodness and wisdom in guarding our interests; and the very thought cannot but inspire us with a humble, trustful reliance, and call forth now and tlien earnest entreaty from the depth of the soul. To acknowledge God is not to recognize His presence and remain blind to His perfections ; it is not to mark the working of His hand and forget the goodness of His heart ; or to believe that He is ever surrounding us as a watchful friend, and yet not yield Him our confidence or utter to Him our prayer. Acknowledgment of such a Being must, in the nature of things, include faith, and without this it would be only a lifeless form — a skeleton of religion without its soul.
^ I am often tempted to trust too much to you ; not, I think, to believe your wisdom, and gentleness, and patience, and faith to be greater than they are, but to think too much that I was to trust to them in you, instead of in God, because I have not felt Him to be an ever-present guide, not only into the mysteries of His own Love, not only into the meaning of past wants, but into the grounds of all right and all wise action. This and this only has confused me ; all has been ordered to teach me, all to strengthen me; and I alone am wrong. Only with these thoughts others mingle ; I must not, in order to recover faith in a Director, give up the direction He places in my way ; I must not mistake self-will for conscience, nor impatience for honesty.