my friends, can you not learn to come to God as the Apostle
directs, making known your requests in 'prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving'? for then 'the peace of God which passeth all
understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ'.

We need far more trust in the providence of our Heavenly Father. What
needless pain we suffer! what agonies of mind we endure! what clouds
hang above and around us! because we do not trust Him in respect of the
circumstances of life.

There are those even who are trusting God to forgive their sins and
save their souls, who yet will not trust Him to carry them through a
difficulty in ordinary life and association, or help them with their
bread and butter. The fact is, they doubt God's personal interposition
in the affairs of men; consequently, their affairs get muddled, and
their hearts and minds are disturbed, often to distraction. No truth is
more plainly taught than that God does interpose. 'In all thy ways
acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.' 'The steps of a good
man are ordered by the Lord.' 'Who is he that shall harm you if ye be
followers of that which is good?' 'No weapon that is formed against
thee shall prosper.'

I know that distrust and doubt can erect all sorts of difficulties, and
perhaps none is more common and specious than what is called by the
sceptical men 'the logic of proportion'. This argument says, 'In a
universe so vast, what is man? As a speck of dust is to a planet, and
as a star is to the vast universe, so is man to the world in which he
lives'. Well, it certainly is not strange that the mind should stagger
at the thought of the Creator of the universe putting His hand to the
management of the details of a human life. And yet God's truth in the
Bible completely wipes out this so-called 'logic of proportion'.

Let us look at a familiar illustration used by our Master of God's
minute care for those who fully trust and follow Him. One able man has
called what I am referring to 'the doctrine of the odd sparrow'.
Matthew records how, on one occasion, Jesus said, 'Are not two sparrows
sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall to the ground
without your Father'. But, turning to Luke, we find a slight variation
in what Jesus said, 'Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and
not one of them is forgotten before God'. Now, do you see the point of
Luke's putting of it? It is as if the dealer had said to the buyer,
'Lo