Why This Book Has Been Written

“My heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the king.” Psalm 45:1 I was once talking on the subject of religion with an intelligent agnostic, whom I very much wished to influence, and after listening to me politely for a little while, he said, “Well, madam, all I have to say is this. If you Christians want to make us agnostics inclined to look into your religion, you must try to be more comfortable in the possession of it yourselves. The Christians I meet seem to me to be the most uncomfortable people anywhere around. They seem to carry their religion as a man carries a headache. He does not want to get rid of his head, but at the same time it is very uncomfortable to have it. And I, for one, do not care to have that sort of religion.” This was a lesson I have never forgotten, and it is the primary reason for my writing this book.

I was very young in the Christian life at the time of this conversation and was still in the first joy of entering into it, so I could not believe that any of God’s children could be as uncomfortable in their religious lives as my agnostic friend had claimed. But when the early glow of my conversion had passed, and I had come down to the dullness of everyday duties and responsibilities, I soon found from my own experience, and also from the similar experiences of most of the Christians around me, that there was far too much truth in his statement, and that the religious life of most of us was full of discomfort and unrest. In fact, it seemed, as one of my Christian friends said to me one day when we were comparing our experiences, “as if we had just enough religion to make us miserable.”

I confess that this was very disappointing, for I had expected something altogether different. It seemed to me extremely inconsistent that a religion, whose fruits are declared in the Bible to be love, joy, and peace, should so often work out in practice in exactly the opposite way, and should produce doubt, fear, unrest, conflict, and discomfort of every kind; and I resolved, if possible, to find out what was wrong. Why, I asked myself, should the children of God lead such completely uncomfortable religious lives when He has led us to believe that His yoke is easy and His burden is light? Why are we troubled with so many spiritual doubts, and such heavy spiritual anxieties?

Why do we find it so hard to be sure that God really loves us, and why is it that we never seem able to believe for long in His kindness and His care? How is it that we can allow ourselves to suspect Him of forgetting us and forsaking us in times of need? We can trust our earthly friends and feel at ease in their companionship, so why is it that we cannot trust our heavenly Friend, and that we seem unable to be at ease in His service?

I believe I have found the answer to these questions, and I would like to say frankly that my purpose in writing this book is to try to bring a little real and genuine comfort into some troubled Christian lives around me. My own understanding of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ is that it was meant to be full of comfort. I am sure that any unbiased reader of the New Testament would say the same, and I believe that every newly converted person, in the first joy of their conversion, fully expects it. And yet, as I have said, it seems that for a large number of Christians, their religious lives are the most uncomfortable part of their existence. Does the fault of this situation lie with the Lord? Has He promised more than He is able to give?

A writer has said, “We know what over-advertising is. It is a modern disease from which we all suffer. There are posters on every billboard, exaggerations on every blank wall, representations and misrepresentations without number. What visions we have seen of impossible fruits and flowers grown from so-and-so’s seeds. Everything is over-advertised. Is it the same with the kingdom of God? Do the fruits we produce from the good seed of the kingdom match the description given by Him from whom we received that good seed? Has He misled us? There is a feeling around that Christ has offered in His Gospel more than He has to give. People think that they have not quite experienced what was promised as the portion of the children of God. But why is this so? Has the kingdom of God been over-advertised, or has it simply been under- believed? Has the Lord Jesus Christ been overestimated, or has He only been under-trusted?”

What I want to do in this book is to show, in my small way, what I firmly believe: that the kingdom of God cannot possibly be over-advertised, nor can the Lord Jesus Christ be overestimated, for “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”; and that all the difficulty arises from the fact that we have under-believed and under-trusted.

I want, therefore, to show as clearly as I can the reasons there are in the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ for that deep and lasting peace and comfort of soul, which nothing on earth can disturb, and which is said to be the portion of those who embrace it. And I also want to explain, if this is indeed our rightful portion, how we are to make use of it, and what things stand in the way. There is God’s part in the matter, and there is man’s part, and we must look carefully at both.

A wild young man, who was brought to the Lord at a mission meeting, and who afterwards became a joyful Christian and lived a good life, was asked by someone what he did to be converted. “Oh,” he said, “I did my part, and the Lord did His.”

“But what was your part,” asked the questioner, “and what was the Lord’s part?”

“My part,” was the quick reply, “was to run away, and the Lord’s part was to run after me until He caught me.”

A very meaningful answer; but how few can truly understand it!

God’s part is always to run after us. Christ came to seek and to save that which is lost. “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.” This is always the divine part; but in our foolishness we do not understand it, and instead think that the Lord is the one who is lost, and that our part is to seek and find Him. The very expressions we use show this. We urge sinners to “seek the Lord,” and we talk about having “found” Him. “Have you found the Saviour?” asked an overly zealous mission worker of a happy, trusting little girl.

With a look of amazement, she replied in a tone of wonder, “Why, I did not know the Saviour was lost!”

It is our ignorance of God that causes all this. Because we do not know Him, we naturally form all sorts of wrong ideas about Him. We think He is an angry Judge watching for our slightest faults, or a harsh Taskmaster determined to demand the utmost service from us, or a self-centred Deity requiring His full measure of honour and glory, or a distant Sovereign concerned only with His own affairs and indifferent to our welfare. Who can wonder that such a God can neither be loved nor trusted? And who could expect Christians, with such ideas of Him, to be anything other than full of discomfort and misery?

But I can say with confidence, and without fear of contradiction, that it is impossible for anyone who truly knows God to have such uncomfortable thoughts about Him. There may be many outward discomforts, and many earthly sorrows and trials, but through them all the soul that knows God must dwell inwardly in a place of perfect peace. “Whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.” And this is a statement no one can question. If we would truly listen to God—which means not only hearing Him but believing what we hear—we could not fail to know that, because He is God, He cannot do anything other than care for us as the apple of His eye, and that everything that tender love and divine wisdom can do for our good will surely be done. Not a single opening for worry or fear is left to the soul that knows God.

“Ah, yes,” you say, “but how am I to know Him? Other people seem to have some kind of inward revelation that makes them know Him, but I never do; and no matter how much I pray, everything seems dark to me. I want to know God, but I do not see how to manage it.”

Your difficulty is that you have a wrong idea of what knowing God is, or at least of the kind of knowing I mean. For I do not mean any mystical inward revelations. Such experiences are delightful when they occur, but they are not always under our control, and they can be uncertain and inconsistent. The kind of knowing I mean is the simple, practical knowledge of God’s nature and character that comes from believing what is revealed about Him in the Bible.

The apostle John, at the end of his Gospel, says concerning the things he had written: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30). It is believing what is written, not what is inwardly revealed, that gives life; and the kind of knowing I mean is the knowing that comes from believing what is written.

I mean, in practical terms, that when I read in the Bible that God is love, I am to believe it simply because it is written, not because I have had any inward experience proving it to be true; and when the Bible says that He cares for us as He cares for the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, and that even the hairs of our head are all numbered, I am to believe it simply because it is written, whether or not I have any inward sense of it.

It is very important for us to understand that the Bible is a statement, not of theories, but of actual facts; and that things are not true because they are in the Bible, but they are in the Bible because they are true. A little boy, who had been learning at school about the discovery of America, said to his father one day, “Father, if I had been Columbus, I would not have taken all that trouble to discover America.”

“Why, what would you have done?” asked his father.

“Oh,” replied the little boy, “I would have just gone to the map and found it.”

This little boy did not understand that maps are only representations of places already known, and that America did not exist because it was on the map, but that it could only be on the map because it already existed. And it is the same with the Bible. It is, like the map, a simple statement of facts; so that when it tells us that God loves us, it is only telling us something that is already true, and that would not be in the Bible if it were not a fact.

It was a great discovery to me when I understood this. It seemed to remove all uncertainty and speculation from the revelation given to us in the Bible about the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to make everything written about Him a simple statement of undeniable facts. And facts are something we can believe—and indeed, we do believe them as soon as we recognise them as facts. Inward revelations are not something we can control, but anyone in their right mind can believe what is written. And although this may seem rather plain and simple at first, if it is steadily followed, it will result in deeply blessed inward assurance, and will eventually lead us into such a knowledge of God as will transform our lives.

This kind of knowing brings conviction; and in my view, conviction is far superior to inward experiences, as delightful as those may be. An inward experience may be affected by one’s health or by many other disturbances, but a conviction remains. Once a person is convinced that two and two make four, no amount of illness, discomfort, or external influence can shake that conviction. He knows it just as well when he is unwell as when he is in good health. Convictions come from knowledge, and no change in feelings or physical condition can alter knowledge.

It is to help my readers come to this kind of practical knowledge of God, and to the convictions that come from it, that this book is written. I will first try to show what God is—not in a theological or doctrinal sense, but simply what He is in real, everyday life, as the God and Father of each one of us. I will also point out some of the things that seem to me to be the main obstacles to truly knowing Him.

I am completely certain that coming to know Him as He truly is will bring unfailing comfort and peace to every troubled heart, and I deeply long to help everyone within my reach to come to this knowledge. One of Job’s friends said, in response to Job’s distress, “Agree with God, and be at peace; thereby good will come to you.” (Job 22:21) And our Lord, in His last recorded prayer, said: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3). It is not a matter of knowing ourselves—what we are, what we do, or what we feel—but simply a matter of becoming acquainted with God, and knowing what He is, what He does, and what He feels. Comfort and peace never come from what we know about ourselves, but always from what we know about Him.

We may spend our days performing what we call religious duties, and fill our devotions with enthusiasm, and still be miserable. Nothing can truly bring rest to our hearts except a real knowledge of God; for in the end, everything in our salvation depends on Him. Our comfort depends entirely on whether He is worthy of our trust. If we were planning a dangerous voyage, our first concern would be the kind of captain we would have. Common sense would tell us that if the captain were untrustworthy, no amount of trustworthiness on our part could make the voyage safe. It would be his character, not ours, that mattered most.

If I can only say this often enough, and in enough different ways, to bring conviction to some troubled hearts, and lift them out of their unhappy and uncomfortable religious lives into the kingdom of love, joy, and peace—which is their rightful inheritance—I will feel that my purpose in writing this book has been fulfilled. And I will be able to say, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation”; and my pen has tried to describe it.

It must, however, be clearly understood that this book does not attempt to deal with the critical or theological aspects of religion. It does not address questions about the authenticity of the Bible.

Others, far more capable, can deal with such matters. This book is written for people who, like myself, profess to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and who accept the Bible simply as His revelation.

Setting aside all critical questions, therefore, I seek only to explain what seems to me to be the natural result of such belief, and how believers can personally experience it.

There may be mistakes in how I express these things, and for that I ask the understanding of my readers. But the truth I want to communicate—and to communicate in such a way that no one can fail to understand—is not a mistake. And that truth is this: our religious lives ought to be full of joy, peace, and comfort, and if we come to know God better, they will be.