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.
A brother once came to the altar in a meeting I helped to hold. In telling his trouble he said, “When I want anything done, it has to be done in a hurry.” Many other people can not be patient and wait. They want it _now_. This is a great hindrance to their faith. The Psalmist says, “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him” (Psa. 37: 7). We are not only to wait patiently for him to work out his purpose, but we are at the same time to _rest_ in him. Some people can wait, but they can not rest at the same time. They are uneasy and impatient; they want to hurry the Lord all the time. The result usually is that their faith does not last very long. You must add patience to your faith to make it effective. If you really trust, you can be patient. It may not always be easy, but the more perfect your trust, the easier it will be to be patient.
When Luther was summoned to meet the diet for trial on a charge of heresy, his friends, fearing for his life, tried to persuade him not to go; but he declared that he would go even if there were as many devils there as there were tiles on the housetops. He trusted God, and that trust gave him an unwavering courage. Three Hebrews trusted God, and the fiery furnace could not even singe their garments. Daniel trusted God, and the hungry lions could not touch him. Many thousands of others have trusted God with similar results.
But trusting God is an active, positive thing. A passive submission or surrender to circumstances is not trust. Trusting the Lord to save us means to definitely rely on him to do it; to confidently expect that he will do it. This leads directly to the confident trust that he does do it. It brings the conscious assurance that it is an accomplished fact. We are not left to doubt, to hope, or to guess; but we have a positive trust that brings a positive result.