trust

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What do you trust? It's a question i've been grappling with a lot lately. It usually springs to mind at the dawn of some great challenge, where the end is very much hidden from my sight - exams for instance, or finances, or whatever other road bumps I might meet.







I normally don't worry too much about all that stuff. I guess I just know that I'll get through it... after all, I always do, don't I?


Well, that's the very mindset that I've been feeling challenged on lately. I'm starting to realise that there's an important difference between knowing you'll get through the hard stuff just because you always do, and knowing you'll get through it because you trust in God. The first is a trust in yourself, a trust that seems fair and reasonable, but won't always see you to the end - the second is a trust in the Lord your God who, in his very nature, can never fail you: personally, I want to know how to get my trust to be in Him, not in my own efforts.

Psalm 20:7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

I was reading the book of Daniel last week (no, I'm not a narcissist, it's just where I'm up to since starting to read the Bible cover-to-cover), and was amazed by the absolutely unquestioning and unrelenting trust of Daniel's friends as they're about to be thrown into a blazing furnace to their deaths:

Daniel 3:16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."

We see there that Daniel's friends were prepared to go into that fire whether or not God chose to save them. Ah, but surely that means they weren't actually trusting in him at all, that they were just happy to die? But no! Their trust wasn't in God necessarily saving them (although he did exactly that), but in the goodness of his character to prevail and keep them safe. I think there's a real temptation for christians to think that God has jeopardised their trust because a certain outcome they were 'trusting' for didn't come to pass, but it shouldn't be that way - we are called to trust in God for who he is, with the sure knowledge that if God is good and his plans are to prosper us, then all will be well.


Man. That revelation sure did simplify things for me. Just on a final note, Jesus tells his disciples in John 12 to 'trust in the Light so that they may become sons of the Light'. That word for trust, "pisteute", can be rendered to English a few ways: have faith in, entrust yourself in, believe in, commit to, hold to, rely on.


One thing for sure; you can always rely on God.


love Dan.