God Is Enough

My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved. PSALM 62:5–6

The God of All Comfort ends with a chapter whose title is three words long, and Hannah Whitall Smith called it the last and greatest lesson the soul has to learn. God is enough. All His dealings with us, she believed, are meant to teach us this, and it is the crowning discovery of the Christian life.

Christ and something else

We sing, she says, that Christ is all we want. But few of us mean it. We want Christ and something else: warm feelings about Him, a sense of His presence, satisfying doctrines, successful Christian work, answers to prayer we can point to. Christ alone, without any of our experiences of Him, has not seemed enough; we cannot even imagine how He could be. So the psalmist’s my soul, wait thou only upon God becomes, in practice, my soul, wait upon my sound doctrine, or my good feelings, or my fervent prayers. Only when everything else fails do we trust God alone.

She quoted George MacDonald to the effect that we treat God as our last and feeblest resource, going to Him only when we have nowhere else to go — and then find that the storms have driven us not onto the rocks but into the harbour.

Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. HABAKKUK 3:17–18

Feelings change, she says, and often with our health, or our surroundings, or the weather. Some people, she remarks dryly, “can never believe that God loves them when the wind is in the east.” Doctrines may be shaken, work may come to nothing, prayers may seem to lose their fervour, and even promises may seem to fail. And then only God is left — the bare God, as she dared to put it. And God is enough.

The Promiser and the promises

She made a distinction that has helped many people in the dark. We often say, if only I could find a promise to fit my case. But promises can be misunderstood or misapplied, and at the very moment we lean our whole weight on one, it may seem to give way. “But the Promiser, who is behind His promises and is infinitely more than His promises, can never fail or change.” A little child does not need promises from its mother; it has its mother, and she is enough.

She told how she learned this. In a time of great perplexity, when she felt no one had ever had difficulties as peculiar as hers, she went to a woman with a reputation for spiritual wisdom and poured out her troubles, expecting deep sympathy. The woman listened, and then said: “Yes, all you say may be very true, but then, in spite of it all, there is God.” Hannah waited for more. Nothing came. She went back again and again, and always got the same answer. At first she thought her friend simply did not understand. Then, slowly, she began to wonder whether God might be enough even for her — and at last she saw that He was, and her troubles vanished.

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; 2 CORINTHIANS 3:5

You don’t know my mother

The most tender passage in the chapter is a memory of her own childhood. Her mother, she says, was the remedy for all her troubles, and she was sure her mother could have mended the troubles of the whole world if only they were brought to her. When anyone doubted it, the child would silence them with scorn: “Ah! But you don’t know my mother.” Now, when someone could not see that God was enough, she felt like saying the same — not with scorn but with pity: you do not know God.

Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. PSALM 73:25–26

She drew the lesson in her usual common-sense way. Suppose a man stands accused before a judge. What matters — his feelings about the judge, or the judge’s feelings about him? Obviously the second. So in our relation to God, the vital question is never how we feel toward Him but how He feels toward us. And the answer to that has been settled at the cross.

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. ROMANS 8:38–39

In old age

She lived this. The Unselfishness of God ends with a chapter on old age written when she was seventy and increasingly infirm. Knowing that God is and that God is enough, she wrote, “makes old age a joy in the present and death a delicious prospect for the future.” She was glad to hand the world’s work to younger shoulders. God, she said, is the housekeeper of His own creation, and she could leave it in His care without fear that things would fall apart when she was gone.

A word of care

Two things should be said so that her phrase is not misheard. First, the bare God she speaks of is not a God stripped of Christ, but the God revealed in Christ — the Father, the Shepherd, the God of all comfort — trusted for Himself rather than for what He gives. Second, she did not despise feelings, doctrines or work. She said so plainly: we may have them all, but as the fruit of salvation, never the ground of it. The Bible, the church and prayer are how we come to know Him. They are not substitutes for Him.

The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. LAMENTATIONS 3:24

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Finish the sentence honestly: I could trust God completely if only I had … What is your something else?

2. When your feelings are low this week, notice the wind, and refuse to let it decide whether God loves you.

3. The next time you look for a promise and cannot find one, say: but there is God.

4. Ask yourself the judge’s question: am I more concerned with my feelings about God or His about me?

5. If you are older, or unwell, consider how knowing that God is enough might change the way you face the years ahead.

A PRAYER

Lord, I have wanted You and something else — feelings, answers, success, a promise to fit my case.

Take away whatever I have leaned on instead of You, and let me find that You are enough.

When I cannot feel Your love, remind me that it is Your feeling toward me, not mine toward You, that matters, and You have shown it at the cross.

In life and in death, in youth and in age, be my portion for ever. Amen.