Too many of us are like a woman whose husband recently said that they had often gone driving together, that their horse would sometimes become frightened, and that when it did, his wife would also become frightened and would almost invariably seize the lines. Thus, he would have to manage both his wife and the horse, making his task doubly difficult. How many of us are just like that woman! When anything threatens, we become alarmed and try to help God. We feel that it is not safe to leave all in his hands and let him manage the circumstances. Our failure to submit to him often complicates matters, and it is harder for him to manage us than it is to manage the difficulties. To trust God means to keep our hands off the lines. It means to let him have his way and do things as he thinks best. It may be a hard lesson to learn, but you will hinder God until you learn it. “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil. 2: 13). If your life is submitted to him, he will work in you to will as well as to do. He will help do the planning as well as the working out. He will aid you in the choosing, no less than in the doing. If you can not submit to him thus, you have not reached the place where you can trust. You must first learn to take your hands off yourself and off circumstances; then trust will be natural and easy. How can you trust him if you are not willing for him to do just as it pleases him? When you have submitted all and he has his way fully with you, then the blessed fruitfulness of trust will come into your life. Trust also implies obedience. It means working with God to produce the results. We can not sit down and fold our hands in idleness and expect things to work themselves out. We must be workers, not shirkers. The man who prays for a bountiful harvest but prepares no ground and plants no seed will pray in vain. Faith and works must go together. We must permit God to _direct_ our efforts and _command_ our efforts. We must be willing to work when he wants us to work and in the way he wants us to work. Our attempts to trust will amount to nothing if we are not willing to obey. Right here is the secret of many people’s trouble; they are willing to obey so long as the thing commanded is what they themselves would choose, but when it is otherwise they are not so ready. Our obedience must be full and willing, or we can not trust. Trust implies patience. Even God can not work everything out immediately. We are told that “ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise” (Heb. 10: 36). So many times we want the answers to our prayers right away. If they do not come thus, we grow impatient and think God is not going to answer. There is no use trying to hurry the Lord; we shall only hinder him if we do. He will not work according to our plans, but according to his own. Time does not matter so much to the eternal One as it does to us.