Comments for the Book by Hannah W. Smith
The God Of All Comfort. It can be read online or downloaded for free
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GOAC Chaper 12 -

Chapter 12
A Word To The Wavering Ones
“But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.”
It would be difficult to find any one thing that produces more discomfort in the religious life than does a wavering faith. The figure given us by the apostle James exactly describes it—“a wave of the sea driven by the wind and tossed.” And just as it is impossible for a traveler to reach his destination by advancing one day, and retracing his steps the next, so is it equally impossible for the wavering soul, while it wavers, to reach any place of settled peace.
In our last chapter we considered the shakings of God; and it might be thought that our waverings would be akin to His shakings. But God’s shakings are caused by His love, and are for our blessing, and always lead to rest and peace; while our waverings are caused by our want of faith, and always lead to discomfort and turmoil.
A wavering Christian is a Christian who trusts in the love of God one day and doubts it the next, and who is alternately happy or miserable accordingly. He mounts to the hilltop of joy at one time, only to descend at another time into the valley of despair. He is driven to and fro by every wind of doctrine, is always striving and never attaining, and is a prey to each changing influence, caused by his state of health, or by the influences around him, or even by the state of the weather.

You know, I had to stop right there, ‘even by the state of the weather.’ Ya, see, I hate the cold. I find it hurts, my knees ache, I find it dries out my skin, it flakes, it cracks and it bleeds. I find somehow that thoughts of broken water pipes come into my mind, old furnace that maybe should be replaced before it stops. It used to be that too much snow and my thoughts turned to being stuck even more so in a place I didn’t want to be and I would get depressed. Somewhere along the line I noticed that there was a progression to my thoughts but with these thoughts I could see that it was a “getting off the track” a sliding away if you will.

“Then trials come, and temptations; and doubts begin to intrude; and instead of treating these doubts as enemies to be resisted and driven away, they receive them as friends, and give them entertainment; and sooner or later they begin to waver in their faith and in their allegiance, and from that moment all settled peace is gone.”

What am I thinking? Why am I entertaining certain thoughts? Can my thoughts become like a run away freight train, I think so, and headed for a wreck. Uncovering what I really think, what I really believe that so lends itself to what I say and do, it can be very scary, it has been shameful but it also has been part of the process of my salvation that is growing me up into a conscious adult child of God. Our Savior God is not making or wanting simple headed yes-men or yes-women. He is making me into the likeness of His Son Jesus Christ and sometimes the process is very slow and I realize that I need His patience.

Recognition and Response and the way that leads to Redemption and Release it is only by faith believing and trusting that no matter what it is God Is Greater; greater than all my sin, greater than all forces seen and unseen and as John writes, greater than even my heart when it condemns me. (Jn 3:17-20)