Faith is only as good as the object of that faith. The story is told of a small boy in England who was asked by a scientist to allow himself to be lowered down the side of a cliff by a rope in order to recover some important specimens. "We will pay a lot of money," said the scientist.

But the boy replied that he wasn't interested. The scientist was persistent, however, and finally persuaded the boy to do it. But only on one condition: that his father would be the one to hold the ropes by which he would be lowered. He felt safe going down the side of the cliff because the object of his faith was his own father who had never let him down.

Recall with me the story of David and Goliath. To the eye of sense David had no earthly chance of conquering the mighty giant who had been arrogantly defying the armies of Israel. But David, looking at the situation through the eye of faith, could perceive the unseen divine forces that were fighting on his side.

Saul - who was blind to all of this - warned David: "You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth" (1 Samuel 17:33). But David asserted, "The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine" (1 Samuel 17:37).

Then when David came face-to-face with the giant warrior, he declared: "This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down. . . the battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our hands" (1 Samuel 17:46-47).

And the rest is history. Goliath lost the fight before it had even begun. Why? Because the object of David's faith was a mighty God who once declared: "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for me?" (Jeremiah 32:27). The object of David's faith spelled D-E-F-E-A-T for Goliath.

In his book The Pursuit of God, A. W. Tozer commented: "Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied with the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all. While we are looking at God we do not see ourselves - blessed riddance." This was David's secret. He payed no attention to his own weakness and inability. His eye of faith was solely on his Deliverer.

This was also Hudson Taylor's secret. I recall that he once set sail from Liverpool to China on a small sailing-ship, the "Dumfries." When sailing to the north of New Guinea, the captain of the Dumfries discovered that although a breeze would usually spring up after sundown and last until dawn, there was rarely any wind during the daylight hours. Not exactly what you would call ideal sailing conditions!

On one particular day, the captain became noticeably anxious, and when Hudson asked what was bothering him, he explained that a strong undercurrent was pulling them towards some sunken reefs. To make matters worse, there was no wind to give them the power to withstand the undercurrent. All they could do, said the captain, was to wait for the inevitable to happen. "No," replied young Hudson, "there is one thing we have not done yet - we have not prayed."

There were three other spirit-filled believers aboard the ship, and Hudson suggested that each of them retire to their cabins and pray for a breeze. Hudson had prayed for just a few minutes when he gained assurance that their prayers were answered. "Without further ado he went up on deck and asked the first officer ( a rank unbeliever) to set the sail to catch the coming wind.

The man nearly exploded at such an apparently ridiculous suggestion - especially coming from this stripling of a landlubber, who, to cap this farcical nonsense, was religious." Yet Hudson persuaded him to give it a try. With a curse in his mouth and contempt in his eyes, the first officer gave the order and his men jumped to obey.

At that moment, the captain came on deck to see what all the commotion was about. And he witnessed God's response to Taylor's faith. "No sooner was the sail set than the prayer-answering breeze filled it and the ship was soon pulling away from the reef to the safety of the open sea."

Taylor's attention was not on the weakness and inability of puny man. His attention was not on uncontrollable circumstances like the strong undercurrent and lack of wind. The object of his faith was the all-powerful God of the Bible. Taylor believed; God responded!

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