A deep faith
Jane was surely the seventeenth century model for the valiant woman of Proverbs. Highly gifted with a deep thirst for knowing and loving God, she never gave up listening closely to what God wanted from her. She never lost faith in God to guide her, and never lost the belief that she, a woman who had given up all her wealth, all that the world holds dear in the way of family and support, could accomplish all that God asked of her.
We know from her own testimony that her prayer, arid, dry, uneffective as it was through most of her life, was founded on such a deep and unquestioning faith that this virtue alone sustained her and provided the “flame and fire which enlightened and kindled her instructions and her own life”
Reflection questions:
I. What does God wish for us?
2.What can we do when we don’t want what God seems to wish for us?
3.What does it mean to have faith even amidst the dryness and aridity of prayer?
APPLICATION
Scripture
When Jesus heard hen, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. (Matthew 8:10) .
Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive. (Matthew 21:22)
The one who is righteous will live by faith. (Raman 1:17)
The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim), because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him fron the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9,10)
JANE’S WORDS:
Faith is the light of a new universe; it is the science of saints. In prayer more is accomplished by listening than by talking. Let us leave to God the decision as to what shall be said, without troubling ourselves to find a theme or subject in our own minds. God speaks to the heart.
You wish, perhaps, to know the foundation upon which we are to support our faith in God. Here you have it in three points: first, because he is all wise. Secondly, because he is all good . Thirdly, because he is all powerful
Be assured, the soul that is so happy as to repose in God by entire faith is never shaken by anything. Everything turns out well for it. Everything that is according to God’s mind pleases it. The soul that has fixed all its faith in God never has need of anything because he in whom it confides has such care of it that he ever has his eye upon it for its good.