[Ps 62:8] Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.
Trusting God is hard enough in normal circumstances but learning to trust Him at all times seems downright impossible. What we see with our eyes often clobbers our faith and we find ourselves treading water in a sea of doubt and despair. The real question before us is can God be trusted at all times?
Can God be trusted when you are peering over the edge of the coffin and looking at the lifeless corpse of your loved one? Can God be trusted when the doctor informs that you have cancer? Can the Lord be trusted when your spouse packs up and walks out? Is God still reliable when the bills mount and the income is shrinking? Is God trustworthy when the chronic pain worsens after years of fervent prayer without any seeming response from Him who promises to answer prayer and tells us nothing is impossible with Him?
I too live in the real world and see multiple reasons why people have such a hard time trusting the Lord. I see people who have endured so much hardship and tragedy. I am not talking about wicked people. I am talking about good people who love God and serve Him wholeheartedly. I have watched over the past several years as my wife has battled rheumatoid arthritis. I have heard her moan in pain through tormented sleepless nights. I have watched her hobble around in the early mornings to get her joints working. I have watched her wring her hands as they writhed in pain from trying to write thank you cards. Why won’t God heal her? He has the power? He would get glory from doing it. His kingdom would be furthered as she would have more energy to serve Him and we would have more money freed up from not having to visit the doctor or buy medications to invest in building the kingdom.
We have stood on faith and for months she lived without taking her medicines in belief that God would heal her but the pain only worsened and her joints only stiffened more. Eventually she sensed the Lord telling her that her not being healed was not due to a lack of faith. God has simply not chosen to heal her as of yet. That is pretty hard to live with and trusting God in seasons like that can be a challenge.
The word “trust” in this passage means to be confident, to be sure, to be bold and careless. How do you proceed through life in confidence and with boldness and surety when it seems that God is not coming through for you or not coming through for you in the way that you had hoped? How can you possibly trust Him at all times when you are convinced God is not faithful at all times? This is the crux of the matter.
Is the God Jehovah faithful at all times? Is He always reliable and always trustworthy? Before we proceed; those questions beg for an answer. Not some trumped up Sunday School answer but the truth you believe at the core of your being. Can Creator God be trusted with every life and in every season of life? Depending on how you answer that question will in large part determine what you believe about God.
I have met numerous people in my life who loved to brag. They bragged about being the best basketball player, fisherman, hunter, football player, etc. Now when God says something about Himself He is not bragging. His very nature is true and truth telling. [Deut 7:9] [Is 49:7]I Thess 5:24] [I Jn 1:9] [Rev 2:10]Rev 19:11] These are only a few times in the scriptures when God says about Himself, “I am faithful.” He is trustworthy and reliable. As for me I choose to believe this by faith even when I cannot understand why my wife aches every moment of every day and why God chooses not to heal her or in hundreds of other circumstances I do not understand.
Trusting God is a matter of faith and far too many people want to see before they believe. This didn’t work in Jesus’ day. People saw Him perform miracles and they still chose not to believe. “And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He wondered at their unbelief. And He was going around the villages teaching.” [Mark 6:1-6] We are living in a faithless age. Faith is almost as extinct in the pews of many churches as out in the pagan world.
If we can do nothing else today at least let us pray the prayer of the father in [Mark 9:24], “I do believe; help my unbelief.” If we are going to learn to trust God at all times we need to learn to pray that prayer at all times especially at times when we are tempted to doubt and forsake the faith.
Lord, help our unbelief and help us to trust you at all times even when it hurts, even when our tears cloud our view of You, when the pain does not stop, when the burdens gets heavier, and when others like Job’s wife tell us to curse You and die. Help us, enable us, empower us to trust You at all times. In Jesus name, Amen.
Steps to Trust and Obey:
1. Identify the areas that are causing you to doubt.
2. One by one cast these burdens on the Lord.
3. Choose to believe God for His best.
4. Surrender your desires to Him. Determine that you will trust Him at all times no matter how He choses to answer your prayers.
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