Well, that’s a big question, and godly
people have a lot to say to answer it. I found one great answer in the
letters of John Newton. You probably know Newton as the slave trader (and onetime slave himself) who was gloriously converted to Christ, and who wrote the most
beloved hymn in the English language, Amazing Grace.
But Newton was also a loving and faithful pastor, and a prolific letter-writer. He wrote a series of wise and humble letters to a young Christian woman names Miss Jane Flower. She asked him the question I posed above, and here’s how Newton responded in October of 1778:
We shall keep close to him, in proportion as we are solidly convinced of the infinite disparity between him and the things which would presume to stand in competition with him, and the folly, as well as ingratitude, of departing from him. But these points are only to be learned by experience, and by smarting under a series of painful disappointments in our expectations from creatures. Our judgments may be quickly satisfied that his favour is better than life, while yet it is in the power of a mere trifle to turn us aside. The Lord permits us to feel our weakness, that we may be sensible of it; for though we are ready in word to confess that we are weak, we do not properly know it, till that secret, though unallowed dependence we have upon some strength in ourselves, is brought to the trial, and fails us. To be humble, and like a little child, afraid of taking a step alone, and so conscious of snares and dangers around us, as to cry to him continually to hold us up that we may be safe, is the sure, the infallible, the only secret of walking closely with him. (Letters of John Newton, The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 2007, 327-328)
I think Newton is right. We only learn by experience that we can trust only Him. So, as he says, "The Lord permits us to feel our weakness..." What happens then is that our "secret dependence" upon other things is "brought to trial, and fails us."
Oh, may Christ teach us how to depend upon Him alone. With the
humility of a little child who knows with certainty that she isn’t big enough to make it without the
strong, wise hand of her Dad.
