“For instance,” I said, “suppose I wanted very much to go somewhere, or not to go somewhere—for reasons which seemed good ones to me—would it be wicked to ask God to arrange it so?”
Lady Monksburn looked up at me with her gentle, motherly eyes.
“Dear child,” she said, “you may ask God for anything in all the world, if only you will bear in mind that He loves you, and is wiser than you. ‘Father, if it be possible,—nevertheless, not My will, but Thine, be done.’ You cannot ask a more impossible thing than that which lay between those words. If the world were to be saved, if God were to be glorified, it was not possible. Did He not know that who asked it with strong crying and tears? Was not the asking done to teach us two things—that He was very man, like ourselves, shrinking from pain and death as much as the very weakest of us can shrink, and also that we may ask anything and everything, if only we desire beyond it that God’s will be done?”
“Thank you,” I said, drawing a long breath. Yes, I might ask my second question.
“Lady Monksburn, what is it to trust the Lord Jesus?”
“Do you want to know what trust is, Cary,—or what He is? My child, I think I can tell you the first, but I can never attempt to paint the glory of the second.”
“I want to know what people mean by trusting Him. How are you to trust somebody whom you do not know?”
“It is hard. I think you must know a little before you can trust. And by the process of trusting you learn to know. Trust and love are very near akin. You must talk with Him, Cary, if you want to know Him.”
“You mean, pray, I suppose?”
“That is talking to Him. It is a poor converse where all the talk is on one side.”