He Leadeth Me...

This book is a gem-it is a lesson about trust in God and total abandonment to Him. Every time you think the author has learned this lesson himself and passed it on to you, he goes deeper-which calls the reader to go deeper also. Try this:

He was asking a complete gift of self, nothing held back. It demanded absolute faith: faith in God's existence, in His providence, in His concern for the minutest detail, in His power to sustain me, and in His love protecting me. It meant losing the last hidden doubt, the ultimate fear that God will not be there to bear you up. It was something like that awful eternity between anxiety and belief when a child first leans back and lets go of all support whatever-only to find that the water truly holds him up and he can float motionless, totally relaxed.

Once understood, it seemed so simple. I was amazed it had taken me so long in terms of time and suffering to learn this truth. Of course we believe we depend on God, that His will sustains us in every moment of our life. But we are afraid to put it to the test. There remains deep down in each of us a little nagging doubt, a little knot of fear which we refuse to face or admit even to ourselves, that says, "Suppose it isn't so." We are afraid to abandon ourselves totally into God's hands for fear He will not catch us as we fall. It is the ultimate criterion, the final test of all faith and all belief, and it is present in each of us, lurking unvoiced in the closet of our mind we are afraid to open. It is not really a question of trust in God at all, for we want very much to trust Him; it is really a question of our ultimiate belief in His existence and His providence, and it demands the purest act of faith.

It is as simple as our Baptisimal promises: do I really believe in God? We don't think of it in those terms. And so seldom is our belief truly tested. We always hedge our bet-having reliance on self ready to pull out of our back pocket. And then when our own scheme fails and our belief in God's providence is wavoring, then we either despair or accept God grace...