Lets first look at what it is not.
Trust is NOT leaving church to go out and find a boyfriend or girlfriend and then dragging them to church and “trust” God to work out all the rest of the details!
Trust is NOT being diagnosed with an illness and never calling upon the elders of the church to pray over you like the scripture suggests.
Trust is NOT buying a car, signing a commitment to pay it back in 5 years and sit at home trusting God to pay for it.
Trust is NOT marrying someone who is not of your faith, someone who does not want anything to do with church and then trusting God that He will change them!
Trust is NOT having needs and never praying about them.
Trust is NOT living like the devil all week and coming to church on Sunday expecting to defeat him!
Trust takes a lot of effort on our part!
Trust has everything to do with:
The Way We Wait
The Way We Walk
The Way We Witness
The Way We Worship
I know trust looks differently to a single mom than it does to a millionaire.
It looks differently to a homeless man than to a white collar worker.
I know it looks differently to an orphan, as well as to a dying man.
When you are trusting God…do you firmly believe all things will work out for the good? Consider the following:
*A baby is born with serious birth defects. The doctors tell the distraught parents she won’t live more than a few hours. When the parents take the baby home, the doctors tell them not to bring her back because there is nothing they can do. A few months later she dies.
*In the Central African Republic, roving gangs of Muslims with machetes and guns have killed hundreds of fleeing Christians. “They are slaughtering us like chickens,” one man said.
*Feeling the call of God, a man and his wife and their young son move toBenghazi, Libya so he can teach in the International School where he is greatly beloved by his students. He sends his wife and young son home to the US while he stays behind to be with the students through their midterm exams. One day while he is out jogging near his home, some men in a black vehicle pull up and start shooting. They drive away, leaving his dead body on the street. He was only 33 years old.
*A young man with a heart for God starts seminary, dreaming of the day when he can serve the Lord. Three months before graduation, his wife announces she is leaving him. “I don’t want to be a pastor’s wife.” She divorces him and walks out of his life.
*A police officer stops a man known to be a drug dealer. It happens on a busy downtown street and a crowd gathers to watch the unfolding drama. There is a struggle and somehow the drug dealer grabs the officer’s gun. Someone in the crowd yells, “Shoot him, man.” He does, at point-blank range, in the face. The officer was in his early twenties.
*A youth group returns from a week of summer camp. When they are only one mile from home, the bus crashes as it exits the freeway, hitting a concrete abutment and rolling over. Dozens are injured. The youth pastor, his wife, and their unborn baby are killed in the crash along with one of the adult counselors, a mother of five children.
By the way, these stories are all true.
When you are fully trusting, will you say:
Why me?
Why now?
Why this?
We have to understand that God
Upholds all things
Governs all things
And directs all things
He is in control and in charge of everything.
R.C. Sproul, “God doesn’t roll dice.” Nothing happens by chance. Ever.
The Potato Bug By William E. Barton (1919)
A Great and Beautiful Tree grew for a Hundred Years beside a stream. Cattle rested in the shade thereof, and Birds of Heaven did build their Nests in the branches thereof. But there came a Potato Bug who desired to fill his Belly from the Potato Patch on the far side of that stream. And he rested by the stream and he prayed.
And, in the night, there arose a Great Wind, and it smote the tree so that it fell across the stream. And when morning was come, the Potato Bug climbed upon the Great & Beautiful Tree, crossed the water, and entered the Potato Patch.
The Cattle mourned for the Shade which had sheltered them, and the Birds were sorrowing over their Broken Eggs, over their little children crushed by the fall, and over their homes which were desolate. The People for miles around mourned the loss of a symbol of Strength and Beauty felled by the chance of Wind.
But the Potato Bug knew it not, but thanked his God for the answer of the Prayer of the Potato Bug.”
What is the Providence of God?
It is the way that God is directing the universe. He is moving it into tomorrow — He is moving it into the future. Providence means “to provide.” God will provide.
Providence means that the hand of God is in the glove of human events. When God is not at the steering wheel, He is the backseat driver. He is the coach who calls the signals from the bench. Providence is the unseen rudder on the ship of state. God is the pilot at the wheel during the night watch. As someone has said, “He makes great doors swing on little hinges.”
When you think God has stopped caring, remind yourself this:
God cares about the tiniest details of life. Nothing escapes his notice for he is concerned about the small as well as the big. In fact, with God there is no big or small. He knows when a sparrow falls and he numbers the hairs on your head. He keeps track of the stars in the skies and the rivers that flow to the oceans. He sets the day of your birth, the day of your death, and he ordains everything that comes to pass in between.
In every event of Providence, God has a purpose. The calamities of earthquake, the devastations of storm, the destructions of war, and all the terrible catastrophes of plague, have only been co-workers with God. From every evil, good eventually comes.
God has only one purpose, for all history is but one.
There are many scenes, but it is one drama;
there are many pages, but it is one book; there are many leaves, but it is one tree. There are many lords and many rulers, yet is there but one empire, and God the only Potentate.- C H Spurgeon
I asked the Lord to heal me and to make me whole,
But he lamed me to teach me humility.
I asked Him to make me rich,
But he impoverished me to teach me to trust Him.
I asked Him to let me run my life and do His wishes tomorrow,
But he admonished me that there may never be a tomorrow.
I asked Him to let me enjoy the sin of pride in material things,
But he took them away to make me dependent upon Him alone.
He gave me nothing that I asked for, but everything that I needed.
I have no choice but to trust Him with everything, from now to eternity.
(Author unknown)
“For we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28 NKJV).