ortal plans fail
and have always failed, and that they accomplish nothing. God hinders
and resists man's work when he will not trust him. Hence God can
grant no success or favor to that which is founded on human wisdom or
on trust in human powers. This is a truth men must finally perceive
by experience, and they must lament because they would not believe
it.

40. Let him who would be a Christian learn to believe this. Let him
practice and exhibit faith in all his affairs, bodily and spiritual,
in his doing and his suffering, his living and his dying. Let him
banish cares and anxious thoughts. Courageous and cheerful, let him
cast them aside; not into a corner, as some vainly think to do, for
when burdens are permitted to conceal themselves in the heart they
are not really put away. But let the Christian cast his heart and its
anxieties upon God. God is strong to bear and he can easily carry the
burden. Besides, he has commanded that all this be put upon himself.
The more thou layest upon him, the more pleasing it is to him. And he
gives thee the promise that he will carry thy cares for thee, and all
things else that concern thee.

41. This is a grand promise, and a beautiful, golden saying, if men
would only believe it. If a powerful ruler here on earth were to give
such a promise, and were to demand that we let him have all the
concern about gold and silver and the needs of this life, how
cheerfully and contentedly would every one cling to such promise! But
now a greater lord says all this, one who is almighty and truthful,
who has power over the body and life, and who can and will give us
everything we need, both temporal and eternal. We should have in all
this, if we only believed it, half of heaven, yea, a perfect paradise
on earth. For what is better and nobler than a quiet, peaceful heart?
For this all men are striving and laboring. So have we been doing
hitherto, running to and fro after it. Yet it is found nowhere except
in God's word, which bids us cast our cares and burdens on God and
thus seek peace and rest. It counsels us to throw upon him everything
that threatens to oppress and worry us. God would not have anxiety
dwell in our hearts, for it does not belong there; it is put there by
the devil.

42. Therefore, a Christian, even though obliged to suffer all manner
of adversity, temptation and misfortune, can cheerfully go forward
and say: Dear Lord God, thou hast commanded me to believe, to teach,
to g