“We
must cease striving and trust God to provide what He thinks is best and in
whatever time He chooses to make it available. But this kind of trusting
doesn't come naturally. It's a spiritual crisis of the will in which we must
choose to exercise faith.” Charles Swindoll
So who do you really trust? Be honest…who do
you really, really trust?
I’ve been mulling this over quite a bit recently.
We’re in the midst of an election year (let the incessant political ads and
robo calls begin). Each candidate seeks to garner support and ultimately our vote
by convincing us to trust him or her...or, at least trust them more than we trust
the other guy.
But do we? Do we really believe the campaign promises?
Do we really believe they have the best interests of the American people in
mind? That they will really do what’s best for the country? Probably not. Most
of us, even if it’s “our” candidate tend to be very skeptical.
What about your employer? Do you trust them?
When they tell you something, do you believe it? If they have a pension set up
for you, are you confident it will be there when you finally retire? Or, what
about when you purchase something? Do you believe the salesperson? That the
product will perform like they say it will? Or, that they’ll honor the
warranty?
What about your friends? When you tell a
friend a secret, something in confidence, do you have a settled sense in your
heart they won’t share your secret? If you loaned them money, do you have
confidence they’ll really repay it…when they promised they would or even at
all?
Do you trust your family? Do you have
confidence in your parents, siblings, or children? Do you believe them when
they tell you something? When they say they’re going to do something that it’s
going to happen?
Hopefully, you don’t have any questions about
the integrity of your spouse. The foundation of a healthy marriage is built on
trust. If you can’t trust your spouse, whether it be their words, judgement or
faithfulness – then your marriage has some serious cracks in its foundation.
What about someone in spiritual authority? A
pastor, deacon or a small group leader? Do you trust him or her? Do you believe
they’re a person of integrity? Of honesty and that they’ll tell you the truth?
And that’s our problem. In each sphere of our
lives, we approach every connection with a huge dose of skepticism. Much of it is
because, sadly, integrity is increasingly rare. Anyone who blindly trusts a
politician, an employer or salesperson tends to be on the gullible side. It
doesn’t help when we hear about so many who fail. Most have experienced an
integrity disappointment in a close relationship. Then, some know their own
lack of integrity and project their failure on others, assuming others are like
them.
Adding
to our internal skepticism pool is the percentage of us who born in a home with
addiction or divorce with the usual denials that surround it, and we develop
serious trust issues. Lies, secrets and broken promises accumulate to send a
message to a child formulating a view of life that trusting can backfire on
them. Many grow into adulthood with difficulty trusting anyone. It affects relationships
(romantic, professional and spiritual) with others. They’ve been disappointed so
often by an addicted parent that to really allow themselves fully trust is a major
hurdle for them.
The tragic result of our fallen world caused skepticism is it ultimately
contaminates our relationship with the One who said, “I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life” (John 14:6). Or, as Numbers
23:19 says, “God is not man, that He
should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Has he said, and
will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not fulfill it?” Depending
on what version you use, the Bible tells us to trust God some 200 times. The
words translated trust in Scripture mean
“a bold, confident, sure security or
action based on that security.”
Trusting
means to believe the promises of God in all circumstances, even those where the
evidence seems to be to the contrary. Hebrews 11 talks about faith, which is
accepting and believing the truth that God reveals about Himself, supremely in
the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The practical outcome of faith in
God is trust, which we prove by living out our full acceptance of God’s
promises day by day. Wonderfully, it’s by this trust that we are promised true peace:
“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind
is stayed on You, because he trusts in You” (Isaiah 26:3).
Trusting God is a love relationship and parallels human love relationships.
It’s easy to trust your spouse or a friend, when you’re in a spring season of
life, when life is like a stroll in a beautiful garden with manicured lawns, a
myriad of plants and flowers displaying a pallet of color. A gentle breeze blows.
It’s like paradise. It’s easy to trust in that setting. But we will never
receive the blessings and rewards of a life of trusting God until we learn to
trust Him during the storms of suffering. In God’s Word and throughout Church
History, the common link for those who have an intimate and deep relationship
with God is that they trust Him in the midst of horrible suffering. It’s also what
Hebrews 11 teaches us.
For example, Brother Yun was a persecuted and later exiled Chinese
pastor. After being imprisoned and weeks of torture, including electrocution,
starvation, beatings, and having needles shoved under his fingernails, Brother
Yun was thrown in a box which was four feet long, three feet wide and four feet
high, where he’d be kept indefinitely. The day after he was put in this tiny cell,
he began praying for a Bible — a ridiculous idea considering many people were
in prison at that very moment for being in possession of such contraband. Yet
he prayed anyway, and, inexplicably, the guards threw a Bible into his cell the
next morning. He wrote: “I knelt down and
wept, thanking the Lord for this great gift. I could scarcely believe my dream
had come true! No prisoner was ever allowed to have a Bible or any Christian
literature, yet, strangely, God provided a Bible for me! Through this incident
the Lord showed me that regardless of men’s evil plans for me, he had not
forgotten me and was in control of my life.”
Is
that how you would have reacted? Had I been tortured and thrown in a
coffin-like cell, my reaction to receiving a Bible would have likely been more
along the lines of, “Thanks for the Bible, Lord, but what I really need is to get
out of this metal box!” I might have ignored Scripture and been upset at God because
my “real” need and prayer request, the reduction of my physical suffering, went
unanswered.
We
are too “this world” focused. Those who trust God know that suffering is not
the worst evil — sin is. Yes, they’d prefer not to suffer. They pray for relief
from suffering, but they prioritize it much lower than we do. They focus far
more on not sinning than
on not suffering. In Brother
Yun’s case, he believed that in his answered prayer God was allowing him to
grow spiritually and minister to his captors. His circumstances of suffering in
an uncomfortable cell became almost irrelevant to him.
That’s a spiritual reality we usually resist. I know I do. Yet, when we
trust the Father in the storm; that He still loves us and we can trust Him and that
passages like Romans 8:28-39 are true, it’s easier to trust Him in all of life.
Storms
are inevitable. We may be unable to trust anyone else, we can always trust our
Heavenly Father. Choose to trust Him when the wind and waves blow, then the
rest of a life of trust in Him becomes smooth sailing.
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