Welcome to “Tuesday Morning”—just what the doctor ordered for the first day of April.

 

The year was 1874. The passengers making the stormy crossing between the United States and England on the steamship Pennsylvania had retreated to their cabin bunks, combating seasickness that made easy tasks very difficult. One passenger, however, although miserable with lingering nausea, remained at the desk in her cabin, writing the twentieth chapter of her book, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life. Hannah Whitall Smith, a promising author, had to finish that chapter and two others in order to meet her publisher’s deadline.

 

The nausea that persisted in her body was consistent with the struggles she faced to complete the book. The assignment had been pushed on her by her publisher and had not come out of inspiration to write on the topic. It had begun as a series of articles her husband had insisted that she write for a periodical he published at the time. The articles were so well received that Hannah agreed to re-write them for a book.

 

But writing on an inspirational theme ran counter to the struggles she faced in her personal spiritual pilgrimage. Raised in a Quaker home, both she and her husband, Robert, began to question the doctrines both of them had embraced since childhood. Eight years after they were married, Robert and Hannah resigned from the Quaker assembly. Hannah’s spiritual struggles ran deeper than Robert’s, and her faith was severely tested following the deaths of their first two children, Nellie and Frank. Robert suffered his second emotional breakdown in 1872, and in 1873 the couple’s fifth child was stillborn.

 

Chapter 20 of her book, “The Chariots of God,” came out of her anxiety and fear over her spiritual struggles. That is the subject of this week’s piece. Continue reading below whenever you are ready, and prepare to climb on board one of God’s chariots. He has one ready for you.

 

Tom Barnard

A Senior Charioteer

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Chariots of God

Tom Barnard

 

t’s one of the great stories in the Old Testament—located in 2 Kings 6:14-18. Elisha was in trouble with the king of Syria. Every plan the king used to defeat the army of Israel was frustrated by Elisha, who warned the King of Israel each time the enemy threatened to attack. In anger, the King of Aram sent his horses and chariots to locate Elisha in the town of Dothan, and capture him.

 

At dawn, Elisha’s servant went outside and saw that the army of the Arameans, along with horses and chariots, had surrounded the city. In panic, he awakened Elisha with the grim news. “Oh my lord, what shall we do?” Elisha was upbeat. “Don’t be afraid,” Elisha said, “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” I can imagine the response of the servant: “Are you kidding me? Come and see for yourself. The only army outside is theirs, not ours!” Or something like that. Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.” And He did. “Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (6:17). End of story. Elisha and his servant were saved by the army of God with his chariots of fire that only the eyes of faith could see.

 

In her classic book, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, Hannah Whitall Smith spoke about how we can be victorious over the forces that seek to defeat us. She encouraged readers to pray the same prayer that Elisha prayed, “Lord, open our eyes that we may see.” Here is how she expressed it:

 

“The world all around us is full of God’s horses and chariots, waiting to carry us to places of glorious victory. But they do not look like chariots. They look instead like enemies, sufferings, trials, defeats, misunderstandings, disappointments, unkindness's. They look like Juggernaut cars of misery and wretchedness, that are only waiting to roll over us and crush us into the earth; but they really are chariots of triumph in which we may ride to those very heights of victory for which our souls have been longing and praying.” (p. 194)

 

Hannah Smith’s life was anything but a bed of roses. Two of her children died before they were 20; a third was stillborn. Her husband suffered from a series of mental breakdowns and business failures. At the peak of his ministerial life he engaged in an extramarital affair, resulting in the family having to move from England back to America. In 1875—the year in which scandal visited the Smith home— Hannah’s best-known book, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, was published. None of her surviving children followed her example in spiritual matters. In spite of her many setbacks, Hanna Smith continued to write books of encouragement and faith. She died at the age of 79, still strong in her faith. Her final book, God of All Comfort, was published five years before her death.

 

One writer said about her, “That her work has achieved such a lasting success is truly a testimony to the depth of her faith, her unflagging reliance on God’s love, and her intelligent and constant search into the heart and mind of God.”

 

Like Hannah Smith, we all have choices to make in our pursuit of faith. We can either let the negative events of our lives be like war wagons that trample our faith, or we can see them as “Chariots of God” that He will use to sustain and strengthen us. Consider these words of encouragement:

 

I dare not be defeated, since Christ, my conquering King,

Has called me to the battle which He did surely win.

Come, Lord, and give me courage, thy conquering Spirit give,

Make me an overcomer, in power within me live.

Verses of a Pilgrim

 

“Verses of a Pilgrim” are from Springs in the Valley, by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman. (Zondervan Pub. House, Grand Rapids, 1997), p. 109.

A new version of The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, copyrighted in 1999, was published by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, TN.