I’ve spent a lot of time being upset about things I couldn’t do anything about and, along with it, the companions of guilt and condemnation aren’t too far away either. And it doesn’t help when you don’t have peace and are unable to enjoy life.
Psalm 5:11 says, ‘But let all those who take refuge and put their trust in You rejoice; let them ever sing and shout for joy, because You make a covering over them and defend them; let those also who love Your name be joyful in You and be in high spirit’. (AMP)
The key to trust is to develop a habit of learning to trust God at all times, in every area of our lives. Christians are called believers, and we should not be behaving like unbelieving believers. Often, we trust our friends, the bank, the stock market, the pilot or the government more than we trust God and His Word.
Sadly, we can go to church, hear what we should do and, when we go home, we try to do it on our own. We usually end up desperately telling God how hard it is, without realising we’ve left Him out in the process. God wants us to put Him first in our lives. He wants us to put our confidence and trust in Him, all the time, in everything.
Trust is the core conviction of judgment based on knowledge, instinct, and experience. Our trust is the firm reliance on God’s character and integrity. It’s the relationship we’ve developed with God whom we know and believe in, and we are safe in His hands. Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us, ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths’.
Trust begins with faith, and faith is the ‘the substance of things hoped for’. I’ve developed a faith in God – a belief that He’s able. Faith doesn’t require evidence for belief or practice, it’s a strong belief without logical proof. The very nature of faith infers that tangible evidence doesn’t exist and God is trying to teach me to totally and completely rely on Him.
When I think I can make it happen on my own, then I see that I can’t do anything to make His promise become a reality. When life no longer makes sense, I must be willing to lean into Him. When life is spiralling out of control and everything of value is stripped away, I must be willing to trust Him. I must learn to trust that God is still able when I’m not.
Will every single pain and trial become a holy hammer to mould me into His image? I know God sees the complete picture – from start to finish, and He has ordained all my days even before I took my first breath (Psalm 139:16). I must fully and completely rely on God to do the work.
If you’re God’s masterpiece created by Him to do good works which He has already prepared for you to do (Ephesians 2:10), then it’s imperative that we learn this – God can do anything and no plan of His can be thwarted (Job 42:2). Do you believe?
Even though we can’t fully understand His ways, even though we can’t grasp all that He’s doing behind the scenes, He’s our all-seeing, all-knowing Father who loves us so much; therefore, we can trust Him.
Charles Blondin gained worldwide fame in the summer of 1859 as the first person to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope. Not only did he cross it successfully, he crossed it several times while adding some new elements to each of his acts.
In one such act, he crossed the tightrope pushing a wheelbarrow and the crowd of spectators had plenty of faith in his abilities as they’d seen him traverse the falls successfully many times. When Blondin reached the other side, he asked a simple question, “Who believes I can carry a person across in this wheelbarrow?” Immediately, the crowd responded with cheers of great encouragement and loud whistles affirming his abilities. “Okay,” Blondin then said, “Who wants to get in the wheelbarrow?”
When you walk in faith, the outcome is to trust. To trust God is not to choose what I know and what I can see, it’s going all out and trusting God wholeheartedly.
In our current situation with the Wuhan virus, what’s our response – is it fear or faith? In wisdom we must exercise responsibility so that people are not hurt but we must not let fear hide behind wisdom such that faith is made of no effect.
