s God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good
pleasure" (Phil. 2: 13). If your life is submitted to him, he will work in
you to will as well as to do. He will help do the planning as well as the
working out. He will aid you in the choosing, no less than in the doing.
If you can not submit to him thus, you have not reached the place where
you can trust. You must first learn to take your hands off yourself and
off circumstances; then trust will be natural and easy. How can you trust
him if you are not willing for him to do just as it pleases him? When you
have submitted all and he has his way fully with you, then the blessed
fruitfulness of trust will come into your life.

Trust also implies obedience. It means working with God to produce the
results. We can not sit down and fold our hands in idleness and expect
things to work themselves out. We must be workers, not shirkers. The man
who prays for a bountiful harvest but prepares no ground and plants no
seed will pray in vain. Faith and works must go together. We must permit
God to _direct_ our efforts and _command_ our efforts. We must be willing
to work when he wants us to work and in the way he wants us to work. Our
attempts to trust will amount to nothing if we are not willing to obey.
Right here is the secret of many people's trouble; they are willing to
obey so long as the thing commanded is what they themselves would choose,
but when it is otherwise they are not so ready. Our obedience must be full
and willing, or we can not trust.

Trust implies patience. Even God can not work everything out immediately.
We are told that "ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the
will of God, ye might receive the promise" (Heb. 10: 36). So many times we
want the answers to our prayers right away. If they do not come thus, we
grow impatient and think God is not going to answer. There is no use
trying to hurry the Lord; we shall only hinder him if we do. He will not
work according to our plans, but according to his own. Time does not
matter so much to the eternal One as it does to us.

A brother once came to the altar in a meeting I helped to hold. In telling
his trouble he said, "When I want anything done, it has to be done in a
hurry." Many other people can not be patient and wait. They want it _now_.
This is a great hindrance to their faith. The Psalmist says, "Rest in the
Lord, and wait patiently for him" (Psa. 37: 7). We are not only to wait
patien