Presumption

“If ye have faith and doubt not, if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and cast into the sea, it shall be done.” Good people….have been tempted to tempt the Lord their God upon the strength of this saying….Happily for such, the assurance to which they would give the name of faith generally fails them in time. Faith is that which, knowing the Lord’s will, goes and does it; or, not knowing it, stands and waits….But to put God to the question in any other way than by saying, “What wilt thou have me to do?” is an attempt to compel God to declare Himself, or to hasten His work….The man is therein dissociating himself from God so far that, instead of acting by the divine will from within, he acts in God’s face, as it were, to see what He will do. Man’s first business is, “What does God want me to do?”, not “What will God do if I do so and so?”

-George MacDonald: An Anthology, 29