Bread Crumbs – Devotions for Life

I must still live by naked faith alone, resting on His word, 

and trusting in His infinite love. (1)

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Naked faith, the phrase grabbed me the first time I read it.  

Three times the Bible tells us that as believers we live by faith alone! (2)  This is a phrase which I have used so often that I am afraid it passes through the mind of those who hear it like teflon, it no longer sticks.

To live by naked faith alone reminds me of the old Greyhound Bus commercial: “Go Greyhound and leave the driving to us!” 

Isn’t God saying the same to us, “Trust me and let me do my work!” 

This is what a farmer does.  He tills, plants, fertilizes, and then trusts God to do His work.  An agriscientist can tell us how plants grow and what’s needed to make them grow, but at the end of the day, she has to wait for God’s miraculous work.

I would go crazy as a farmer.  Everyday, I’d be out in the fields looking for something to do to make my crops grow.  I’d stare down the sky for either more sun and heat or more rain and moisture.  I’d pluck a weed here, fluff a clod of soil there.  While I might think I did something spectacular, I really did nothing.

We keep ourselves busy, frantic, and stressed trying to gather the most toys and to grow a great life for ourselves and our kids.  

I know many people who have been successful gathering toys, but are miserable failures when it comes to building lives.

They keep wondering what’s wrong.  They are dying because they trust in themselves, alone.

We are so busy doing, we often forget that only God can get it done!

I wonder if God would be happier, if we would tend to our lives like a farmer?

I wonder if we would be happier if like a farmer, we lived by naked faith alone?

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1. Hannah Whitall Smith and Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Christian’s Secret of a Holy Life : The Unpublished Personal Writings of Hannah Whitall Smith (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

2. Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38