Your First Refuge

Trust in God

Trust Me!

Wow, those are loaded words.

How often have you heard them?

How often have you been hurt by them?

When all we have is our human understanding and experience, how can we over-ride our cynical and inbred distrust of others, even if it is God?

What does trust mean?

According to the dictionary, it is the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.

In Psychology Today we find that:

“1. Trust is a set of behaviors such as acting in ways that depend on another.

 

2. Trust is a belief in the probability that a person will behave in certain ways.

 

3. Trust is an abstract mental attitude toward a proposition that someone is dependable.

 

4. Trust is a feeling of confidence and security that a partner cares.

 

5. Trust is a complex neural process that binds diverse representations into a semantic pointer that includes emotions.”

 

This makes sense on a cerebral level and it does play out in our lives with others, but what if it is a relationship whereby we don’t really hear from another? What happens when there are no clear directions?

How do we know we can trust God?

Let’s start with a basic premise. If we can’t trust the Bible, then we can’t trust God.

In Proverbs 3:5 we find

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

The first lesson man learned was that God means what He says and will follow through on what He promises. We all know the story of how God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil; but they did. The evil tempter talked them into doubting the dictate and for that they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. They died a spiritual death and were immediately separated from the humanity of God. Now this could not have been easy for God as they were his creation, people he dearly loved and cared for.

Numbers 23:19

“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?”

Later He gave us His only Son so that we could return to that human connection with Him.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Why should we trust God?

We can look all around us and see things that just don’t make sense. The wars, devastating weather patterns, natural catastrophes, criminals getting away scot-free, drugs proliferating, young children dying and the list goes on.

1 John 3:20

“If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

I also want to point out that the Jewish people, Israel, are the chosen people. His people. Time and time again they dishonored, turned their back on Him, and rejected Him and He keeps on forgiving them and giving them another chance. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, yet Israel still stands. God has not deserted them, He is the God of all people and loves us.

Psalm 37:4-6

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

I like what John Piper has to say on this verse; “ I think the psalmist is intensifying the specificity of the unique name of God, namely Yahweh, and seeking to capture our affections, our delight for a very personal relationship to a specific personal deity whose character is revealed in the way he works in history and in Jesus Christ.”

I believe that He wants us in a relationship with Him. This, like any other relationship, is to be based on love and trust.

Piper goes on to say’ “Then I would point out that Jesus taught that no one can truly love the Lord God, no one can truly delight in the Lord God of Israel, who does not receive Jesus himself as the Son of God and the Redeemer of the world, sent into the world by Yahweh.”

How do we know God hears us?

Simply because He promised us, He would. As our preacher said to us on Sunday, God may say “Yes”, “No”, and “Wait”. But that doesn’t help us right now. But do we know what the ultimate best solution would be? I would suggest to you that we don’t. God sees the entire picture, we only see a little tiny bit of it.

1Jo 5:14

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”

I Love what Mark Altrogge wrote:

“God is our Rock! He never changes in his character or plans or purposes. He is our loving Father. So, trust in him today.”