We can have full confidence in God, the Author of truth.
Hunter and Percy Mather, missionaries in Mongolia, were lost in the Gobi Desert and could not find their way out. One day their servant came to them and announced, "We have only two handfuls of rice."
Mather answered, "It is not so." We have two handfuls of rice and God." And he sat down and recited Psalm 23, knowing that in difficult or depressing situations, God can introduce entirely new elements to alter circumstances. When he came to the words, "You prepare a table before me...," he looked up and saw the caravan of an English explorer who was passing through this inhospitable wilderness for the first time. The Englishman gave the missionaries all they needed and brought them safely out of the desert.
The Mathers knew that it was not admissible to say, "Lord, Lord" and not do His will, neither is it admissible for God to call us "My child" and "My son" and not give us what we ask of Him. They had confidence that their prayers would be answered.
It is wise to be optimistic in one's thoughts and attitudes. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us to think about God as the good Father who feeds even the birds. Now, birds have their predators, but we are enjoined to think about how God provides for them and to consider ourselves of much greater value. Jesus also suggests that we contemplate the lilies of the field, which God clothes with beauty, though they soon fade and die. We are urged to see the beauty, not the dying. It was Jesus' desire that we apply this principle of sanctified optimism to our daily lives.
Richard Wurmbrand