_A WONDERFUL UNBELIEF_
PSALM lxxviii. 15-25.
"They believed not in God ... though He had----" Let everyone finish that
sentence out of his own experience. How much grace can our unbelief
withstand? The Lord had made the rock like unto a spring of water, and yet
these people believed not! What has He done for thee and me? Let us
retrace the pilgrimage of our own years. Let us recall the blessings by
the way--the streams in the desert, the pillar of fire that led us in the
night. And yet what is the quality of our faith? It is often weak and
reluctant, riddled with timidities, or moth-eaten with worldly ease. It is
not mighty and daring, riding forth every morning like a chivalrous knight
to inevitable conquest. It creeps along, like Mr. Halting, and Miss
Much-Afraid, and Mr. Little-Faith.
"He marvelled at their unbelief." The Lord Jesus wondered that men and
women, seeing what they had seen, did not immediately spring to the life
and service of faith. Perhaps we do not give time for faith to be born!
Perhaps we do not see because we do not look. Perhaps we are blind to His
mercies and are therefore dead to the faith. And therefore, perhaps, our
first prayer should be, "Lord, that I might receive my sight," and then
the prayer, "Lord, increase my faith."