learning to trust

One of the hardest lessons we learn in the Christian life is how to trust God and learn to let Him handle our situations. Why is that? After all, when we become Christians, we are putting our faith (meaning our trust) in Him for salvation. We’re okay with doing that, but we aren’t ok with trusting Him in the day to day, minute to minute parts of our lives? Why do we have such trouble letting go? Why do we feel the need to control what we can’t really control? And how do we get to the point where we can fully trust Him?

Our desire for control keeps us from fully trusting God. Even as Christians, we struggle with this desire, even though it isn’t realistic. We want things the way we want them. We don’t want to admit that our way is not necessarily the best way, or that if we let go things might actually be better than we can make them. A prime example from the bible of someone who needed control were the Pharisees. They were not just the keepers of God’s law; they were also the interpreters. They incorporated regulations on interpretation into the written law, making it even more burdensome than what God gave Moses. The original intention of the regulations was to clarify the law, but instead it made it extremely complicated. One of the ten commandments is to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. They were not to do any work on the Sabbath. To interpret this, they created thirty-nine subcategories and subrules, including how many steps you can take and how many letters you can write. In Savannah where I grew up, the local Jewish community had markers on telephone posts in their neighborhood that served as a boundary of how far they could walk on the Sabbath. I remember my parents pointing them out to us when we drove around the city looking for garage sales on Saturdays.

Fear is a barrier to trusting God. King Hezekiah was on his deathbed and was told by God through Isaiah that he needed to get his house in order because he was about to die. Hezekiah was so distressed that he began to pray for mercy and reminded the Lord how faithful he had been. Before Isaiah could leave the premises, God told him to go back and tell Hezekiah that He had heard Hezekiah’s prayer and would grant him another fifteen years of life. You could say Hezekiah was overwhelmed. He asked for a sign that God would fulfill this promise. God graciously granted him the choice of having the sun move forward on the sundial or move backward. Hezekiah chose backward and it did so. I think he was fearful that the promise was too good to be true. Doesn’t that remind you of us as human beings? We want to trust, but we’re so fearful that we often become paralyzed and want extra proof that God is really as good as the Bible tells us He is.
Fear is never from God. It is a weapon that the enemy uses to keep us from trusting God and following Him in obedience. The enemy has paralyzed most of us at some time or other with fear. Sometimes fear of failure, sometimes fear that God will punish us or be angry with us in some way. Sometimes the fear is insecurity mixed with pride. We feel insecure about doing what we need to do, and we don’t want others to know we might mess things up, so we just don’t try. But the Bible promises us that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-discipline.

Look at Thomas in the New Testament. He had just gone through the death of Jesus, the One Thomas chose to follow, the One whom he followed for three years. Jesus his Master, Teacher, and Friend. According to the gospel of John, even though the disciples told Thomas that Jesus was alive and had appeared to them, Thomas didn’t believe it. He bluntly stated that he would not believe until he had proof, that he could see the imprint of the nails and put his finger in those imprints and his hand into Jesus’ side. His pride and fear were holding him back from believing. So when Jesus shows up a week later and tells Thomas to come check Him out, then Thomas believes and calls Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus tells him that those who don’t see and still believe are blessed. Friends, we can be those who don’t see and still believe. This is faith. It is the evidence that God is doing things we cannot see. When we choose to trust Him, we are proving that He is indeed working. We are exhibiting faith. 

I’ve talked about what keeps us from trusting the Lord. Now let’s examine the benefits of trusting Him. If you have your bibles, open up to Psalm 112 which we read earlier this morning. I’m reading from the NASB. Look at the psalm beginning from verse one. “Praise the Lord! How blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandments.” To fear the Lord is to worship Him. Jesus defined this for us when He was tempted in the desert after His baptism. He quoted from Deuteronomy 6 which says, “Fear the Lord your God and serve Him only.” But when He quoted it, He said, “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.” So when we worship God, giving Him the honor He is due, we are fearing Him. It’s a reverential awe of how magnificent He is, not a feeling of fear or dread. And remember, because of Jesus’s finished work on the cross, He is not angry with us. His wrath was poured out on Jesus. So according to this verse in Psalm 112, we are blessed when we fear Him. To delight in His commandments is to enjoy, believe, and trust His words. Especially His promises to us.

Verse two reads, “His descendants will be mighty on earth; the generation of the upright will be blessed.” Again, we see we are blessed by trusting Him. Here He’s promising that those who honor and worship God, who trust His very words, will see their descendants blessed also. Now it’s becoming a generational blessing.
Now look at verse three: “Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.” Wealth and riches represent God’s provision for us. Over and over in the Bible God tells us that He will provide for His own. We’ll come back to this in a few minutes. As for the second part of the verse, remember that when we place our trust in Jesus as Savior and Lord, we are given His righteousness as a new identity. When it says that “his righteousness endures forever,” it is saying that the righteousness imparted to us through Jesus can never be taken away. That means that we are in right standing with our Heavenly Father. When He looks at us, He sees the sacrifice of His beloved Son and He takes immense pleasure in our trust in Jesus for salvation.
In verse four we see, “Light arises in the darkness for the upright.” The upright is another way of saying the righteous. It means that when we worship the Lord and delight in His commandments, God reveals Himself to us. He is the light. Through the act of worship, we see Him in a new and fresh way. When our focus is on Him, we stop dwelling on the dark thoughts that invade our minds. And we see that Jesus is gracious and compassionate and righteous.

Back to trusting God for provision. Look at verse five. “It is well with the man who is gracious and lends; He will maintain his cause in judgment.” God promised to provide for us. But He isn’t providing just so we can amass wealth and go on vacations and retire early with a mansion and a fancy car. Those are good things, and the Bible says that God gives good things for us to enjoy. However, it’s important to understand that He provides for us so we can be a blessing to others. When we bless others, we are shining His light and showing His love. To help people learn about God’s love for them is the best benefit of trusting Him for provision. 
And there are more benefits: the second part of verse five and verse six says “he will not fear evil tidings; His heart is steadfast, trusting the Lord. His heart is upheld, he will not fear, until he looks with satisfaction on his adversaries.” In other words, peace accompanies trust. When we trust the Lord we are choosing to let go of fear, anxiety, and worry. Say Philippians 4:6-7 with me, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” How do we gain that level of trust? By worshipping God through praise and thanksgiving. We thank Him in advance for answering our prayers. And by allowing ourselves to have a hopeful expectation of good.  

When you trust someone, you have it in your mind that they will be good to you. You don’t worry about them being cruel, or unkind, or thoughtless, or about them disregarding you in any way. Our heavenly Father is like that. He’s good all the time. Turn to Matthew 6:25-34 and let’s read this: “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Here Jesus describes how the Father knows what we need before we even ask. He cares for all the creatures in the earth, whether or not they work for a living. That’s what it means when it says the birds of the air neither toil nor spin. They aren’t trying to earn a living, and yet they completely trust Him to care for their needs. We can trust His care for us. He is a good, good Father. If he cares that much about the creatures of the earth, and they don’t even know to not trust Him, can’t we trust Him to take care of our every need? 

I want to tell you a story about someone who trusted God without having to have a sign or proof that God would come through for him. Elijah trusted the Lord to care for him for deliverance from his enemies and for his physical needs. Let me set the scene. He shows up in 1 Kings seventeen where he condemns King Ahab and Queen Jezebel for not only encouraging idol worship, but for making it legal in Israel. He proclaims to them that there will be a drought in Israel and that it will not rain again for three years, until he (meaning Elijah) declares that rain will come. That is an awesome act of faith. Elijah is pursued by the king and is hidden by the Lord at the Brook Cherith where he is fed by ravens. Sure enough, after three years King Ahab seeks out Elijah. After these three years, Ahab is still plotting to kill Elijah. Elijah told him to have the prophets of Baal show up at Mount Carmel. This is the famous show down: Elijah instructs them to make an offering to Baal and to call on him, while he and the Israelites built an altar, saturated in in water until there were pools of water around it, and declared that the god who answered is the one that they should follow. The prophets of Baal cried out all day long, but there was no answer. Elijah cries out once and says, “O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, today let it be known that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant and I have done all these things at Your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that You have turned their heart back again.” Fire from the Lord fell on the sacrifice and consumed it, even though the wood and stones were soaked. When the people saw it, they repented. He looks at King Ahab and says, “Go up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of the roar of a heavy shower.”

Elijah goes to the very top of Mount Carmel and prays and then says to his servant, “Go look toward the sea.” The servant sees nothing. Elijah continues to pray and sends the servant back seven times. The seventh time a cloud appears, and the rain comes. Elijah did not require a sign from God. He trusted that what God told him earlier would happen. Even though it didn’t appear that anything was happening, he kept on praying and trusting.  

Another example of someone who trusted without a sign was Mary, the mother of Jesus. Gabriel appears to her and tells her she’s going to be pregnant and have the Son of God, the long-awaited Messiah. Mary points out that she’s a virgin and asks how it’s going to happen. Now keep in mind that Mary is a teenager. This is not her asking for a sign. It’s her asking how in the world this is going to take place when the laws of nature say otherwise. God graciously allowed Gabriel to explain it to her. And she courageously says, “Let it happen to me as you have said.” Contrast her trust in God with Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist. When an angel of the Lord appeared to him to announce that he and his wife Elizabeth would have a son who would prepare the way for the Savior, Zacharias demanded a sign to prove what the angel said was true. Because of his self-righteous attitude, he became mute until the naming of John. Now, sometimes God will give a sign. Looking back at King Hezekiah, we see that the Lord allowed him that reassurance of having the sun move backward. But the reason we need to trust Him, is so our faith can grow. Faith and trust are intertwined. They aren’t two separate doctrines. When we have faith, we are trusting. When our faith grows, and we have learned to trust God, we can move mountains.

I participated in a bible study last year by Priscilla Shirer called He Speaks To Me. In it she said, “We should have a childlike expectation that God not only cares about us, but He will come through for us.” Just like a newborn that can do nothing for himself and is utterly dependent and expectant that his parents will come take care of him, we should look to God like that. While I have never had a newborn, I do have a cat who is dependent on me for food, water, and comfort. And Her Majesty lets me know when I haven’t fulfilled one of her requests! But I care for her because I love her. It gives me a little glimpse of how God is training me to trust Him. I know I can come to Him with anything, and He hears me. I wish I could stand here and tell you that I completely trust God in all things. However, like you, this is a life-long journey for me. I’ve learned over the years that my worry (my lack of trust) impedes God’s work in my life. I used to find myself worrying over all kinds of things: finances, health, health of my family, my relationships… The more worried I was, the less I saw progress in those areas. I worried a lot over our finances early in our marriage. You’ve heard me say before that as seminary students we were poor. The more I trusted God to provide for us, the more I stopped begging and stressing over whether or not He would come through for me, the sooner I saw things happen. In our church in Marion, Virginia, I prayed for a way for me to add income. I surrendered myself to the possibility of having to do something I didn’t want to do for a living. The jobs in that area were few and the only opportunities would have placed me working on Wednesday nights and Sundays, which I did not want to do. I surrendered my trust by asking God to open a door for me. And He did! He opened a door for me in an unexpected way. One of our church members ran a wedding shop and needed some extra help. She asked if I might be interested in helping her organize a few things and change her window display. I went into it thinking I was merely helping a friend. I was surprised when she gave me a paycheck and then discussed regular hours with me. God showed me I could trust Him to provide in a lean time with a good job.
Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” In other words, come to Him with childlike faith and trust that, just like Priscilla’s baby knew she would care for him, and my cat knows I will care for her, God will take care of you and your needs. You don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t have to figure out how He’s going to do it. You just need to know that as your Heavenly Father, He wants to prosper you and not to harm you. He wants to give you a future and a hope. Just ask Him to open the door and when He does, step through.

Ultimately the decision to trust God is up to you. You can choose to live in fear, anxiety, and worry. Or you can choose to believe what the bible says about Him. That He will provide for you, care for you, defend you, and bless you.

Let’s pray: Father, thank You for proving Your faithfulness to us over and over and over. You never needed to prove Yourself, but You did it anyway. Help us to trust You. Help us to walk through the doors You are opening for us. Thank You for giving us a spirit of power and love and self-discipline. Thank You for calling us and helping us to trust You to lead us in Your mission for the world. We pray in Jesus’s name, amen. 
​Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash