Jeremiah 17:7-8, “But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him, He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; it leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
Trust. Blessed is the man that trusts in the Lord. Blessed, trust…blessed…trust, blessed = trust. If I want to be blessed, I must trust in the Lord. Ever feel like you have had one of those Eureka moments? Trust in the Lord and you will be blessed.
So what is the difference between trust and faith? Faith is an expectation of hope; trust is I know that I know that I know. So even when I am dying, even when I think that God has taken His hand off me…I must TRUST that he isn’t going to leave me or forsake me? Whoa now, that seems pretty easy, but it is the hardest things that we much do as disciples of the Way of Christ.
Psalm 119:30-32, “I have chosen the way of the truth; I have set my heart on your laws. I hold fast to your statutes, O Lord; do not let me be put to shame. I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.”
Satan’s key to our demise is to teach us to not trust the people that God has put around us to protect us. Eve didn’t trust God and she didn’t trust Adam. If she did she wouldn’t have offered him the apple. She trusted Satan more than she trusted her authorities - why is that? Here was the God that created her, and the man that gave a rib for her to be here and yet a snake comes along and she takes the bait. He created doubt in her mind that her authorities were being honest with her and instead of looking at him and saying, “Silly Snake, my God and my husband would never lie to me, she ate the apple and then fed it to her husband.” Neither Adam nor Eve trusted in God and they found out real quick like that if you aren’t being blessed because you trust, you are being cursed because you didn’t.
2 Samuel 22:3, “The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence.”
David trusted the Lord in all things. Called the Man after God’s own heart, David often cried out his trust for God. But if you notice, David is almost reassuring himself. “In Him I will trust”. Sounds like a decision to me. One that maybe David would have to make again and again.
Psalm 7:1, “O LORD my God, in thee do I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me:”
Psalm 16:1, “Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust.”
Psalms 18:2, “The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.”
Psalms 25:2, “O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.”
David decided numerous times that he was going to trust in the Lord. These are just a few examples but in their context they are usually in a place of struggle. It is easy to trust God when everything is good. When there is money in the bank, when there is food on the table and our children are behaving. Are we enough like Job to keep up the fight or are we going to be like Eve and take the bait?
Job 13:15, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.”
Job says, even if he comes down to him killing me, I am not going to change my ways; I am going to trust God. Job had lost everything, children, land, monies, everything that we would use to define him as a success. Satan touched it all. Yet Job would not be deterred. His wife begged him to turn his back on God and yet he wouldn’t. How different Job was from Adam.
So if we don’t trust the authorities that God set in place whom do we trust? Ourselves?
2 Corinthians 1:9, “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:”
God is the one that has delivered us, let us not forget that not only did he deliver us from death but also he created us in the first place. He is the author and the finisher the beginning and the end. The Alpha and the Omega, the Lion and the Lamb.
1 Corinthians 13 reminds us, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
We don’t even know the purpose for anything that God does in our lives. We know that he created us to have relationship with us. We know that he has promised to do us good and not evil all the days of our lives. But he reveals to us only a thread in the quilt of his plan. We don’t know about the threads near us, or the pieces that he will attach us to. We have no idea what it will look like in the end except to know that he wins. That much we know. He is the victor and how could he not be when he determined the end from the beginning. How can we trust what we think to be reality?
There is a stark difference between truth and reality. The truth is what His word says. Reality is the small sliver that we see. We think that our whole lives are going to come to an end over our debts, over our children’s wrong choices, over what we have to pay for taxes, or gas or a gallon of milk. We struggle with everyday small things…I am beginning to see that those are the things that Satan uses to keep my eyes off the truth. Watching the news or reading the paper could convince you that there is no God. That there are no more miracles, that there is nothing good happening. That God has taken his hands off of our country, our land and his people. But I KNOW that isn’t the truth. If I watch those things it is hard to keep my faith and to put it in the truth of God’s word. God is still a God of miracles, He is still a God of suddenly’s and He is capable of changing my reality with His truth in a matter of moments.
Lord, I trust you. In the big things an in the small things I trust you. Lord, I trust that you are my rock, my redeemer. I trust that my time here on earth is just a vapor and the things that distract me from sharing your love and your mission with others around me are all for nothing. Lord, I trust that you want me to have good healthy relationships, Lord I trust that you hear my prayers and that you know the burdens of my heart. Lord, your provision is all that I know. There is nothing that comes to me that doesn’t cross your desk first. There is nothing that I see that you haven’t created. Lord, I repent of thinking that I could trust my self and my own instincts more that I can trust you and the plan that you have for my life. Lord, there are times that I want to throw in the towel and not trust those that you have put into my life as authorities. Lord, today I chose AGAIN to trust you and to trust them. Lord, if there is anything that I need to be doing that I am not doing I pray that you will reveal it to me. Lord, I commit my life to you. I am tired of living my life for myself, it holds no value to me in that way anymore. My life only matters if I am working for you and doing what you have entrusted me to do. I trust you unto death. I trust you in my marriage, in my finances, in my future and in the future of my children. I trust you that your word does not return to you void and even though I can’t see for the darkness, your plans for me will come to fruition. I trust you even in that Lord. Lord, thank you for your love, your nail scarred hands, thank you for your provision and for your Holy Spirit. I trust you, today again, I chose as an act of my free will to trust you. In Jesus Name I pray. Amen.
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