Faith Looks at the Bridge, Not the Chasm

When it comes right down to it, how do we end up trusting--really trusting--in Jesus when the going gets rough? This is a question of true faith. T. David Gordon recounts a story that may open our eyes to the answer. In his wonderful little book, Why Johnny Can't Preach, Gordon is dealing with the need for us preachers to be sure that we don't just challenge people to have faith, or tell them ways to be more moral (which turns the focus inward to self), or by "taking potshots at what is wrong with our culture." Rather, as he says, "faith is built by careful, thorough exposition of the person, character, and work of Christ."

A Very Helpful Letter After the Civil War

About 25 years after the Civil War, the Southern Presbyterian, Robert Lewis Dabney moved from Virginia to Austin, Texas. "In his latter years he became blind and weak, and knew his death was near. He wrote to his old friend [Clement Read] Vaughn, wondering whether he would have strong enough faith to face his impending death, and Vaughn's reply was as theologically trenchant as it was pastorally lovely. He wrote back to Dabney and asked Dabney what a traveler would do if he came to a chasm over which a bridge was spanned":

What does he do to breed confidence in the bridge? He looks at the bridge; he gets down and examines it. He don't [sic] stand at the bridge-head and turn his thoughts curiously in on his own mind to see if he has confidence in the bridge. If his examination of the bridge gives him a certain amount of confidence, and yet he wants more, how does he make his faith grow? Why, in the same way; he still continues to examine the bridge. Now, my dear old man, let your faith take care of itself for awhile, and you just think of what you are allowed to trust in. Think of the Master's power, think of his love; think how he is interested in the soul that searches for him, and will not be comforted until he finds him. Think of what he has done, his work. That blood of his is mightier than all the sins of all the sinners that ever lived. Don't you think it will master yours?

Now, dear old friend, I have done to you just what I would want you to do to me if I were lying in your place. The great theologian, after all, is just like any other one of God's children, and the simple gospel talked to him is just as essential to his comfort as it is to a milk-maid or to a plow-boy. May God give you grace, not to lay too much stress on your faith, but to grasp the great ground of confidence, Christ, and all his work and all his personal fitness to be a sinner's refuge. Faith is only an eye to see him. I have been praying that God would quiet your pains as you advance, and enable you to see the gladness of the gospel at every step. Good-bye. God be with you as he will. Think of the Bridge!

Your brother,

C. R. V.