pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: trust


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Joy

Reading: Psalm 40: 1-5

The psalmist bears excellent witness to the blessings of our relationship with God.  The Psalm begins by recalling a time when the writer waited patiently for God’s response.  At times this is necessary as our days, hours, and minutes do not quite align with God’s sense of time.  Yet we too can wait patiently and can continue to hold fast to hope because we know that God is loving and faithful.  God did indeed respond to the psalmist.  God lifted the writer out of the pit and gave him a firm place to stand.  This brought relief and comfort and joy to the psalmist.  To express this, God placed a hymn of praise in his mouth so that he could sing of the joy of putting his trust in the Lord.

Verse fours begins, “Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust”.  We are indeed blessed when we trust in God.  In many ways the Lord our God blesses us with the riches of His love and with His unending grace.  The psalmist gushes about the many deeds God has done and the things God has planned for mankind.  This is an expression of the joy he finds from living in a righteous relationship with God.  The psalmist is bearing witness to us so that we can follow his example and can share with others what God has done and continues to do in our lives.

The joy that comes from living with God is a joy that permeates our life.  Just as the psalmist was experiencing a time of trial at the start of the Psalm, we too will have times when we are in the midst of sadness or struggle.  Like the psalmist, when we walk through trial or spend time in the pit, we are not alone.  God continues to be present, to bring us comfort and strength, and to wrap us in the arms of His love and grace.  We walk with confidence that God is faithful, that God is with us no matter what.  We know we will get through it with God.  Ultimately, we also know that the end, whether of the trial or of this life, is just temporary.  We live with a trust in the eternal.  In this sense, we live beyond the here and now.  This is a great source of joy.

Oh, what a blessed assurance we have when we live as a child of God!  We have God’s daily presence, love, and guidance.  And we live trusting into an eternal future with God.  Oh how He loves you and me.  Praise and glory be to God the Father!


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Faithful

Reading: Isaiah 49: 5-7

The servant realizes that God has called him to a role.  Although initially unsure of himself, the servant has come to understand that if God has called him, then God will insure success.  The servant says, “I am honored in the eyes of my Lord”.  In essence, if God has chosen me, then I am up to the task.  Then he goes on to acknowledge that God is his strength.  He recognizes that God has carried him through before and will certainly do so again and again.  The servant is embracing his role as a child of God.

God’s response to the servant’s faith?  Oh no – it is “too small a thing” to just bring salvation and restoration to Israel.  Oh no, the faithful servant will bring salvation and restoration to all people.  The servant will not only be a light to the Jews but to the Gentiles as well.  God’s response to the faithful servant?  God rewards the faith with expanded blessings and an expanded role.  This idea of he who does much with what he has been given will be given more is also found in the parable of the talents.  The servant who works five into ten talents is given even more by his master in turn for his faithful service.  God blesses those who are faithful servants.

So it is with the servant in Isaiah and so it is with us.  It is only when we are willing to trust God that God can and will reward our trust.  When we do trust and step out in faith, we are blessed to see God at work in our lives and in the world.  This allows us to step out quicker and further the next time.  The passage today ends with, “the Lord is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who had chosen you”.  May we be strong in our faith, trusting the Holy One who had chosen each of us.  God is faithful.  May we be so as well.


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Servant

Reading: Isaiah 49: 1-4

We are each chosen by God to be God’s servant.  We are each identified before birth: “before I was born the Lord called me”.  The Lord has followed that call with preparation.  God has planted His Word within us as we have grown and matured in our faith.  God has prepared us for service by making us a ‘polished arrow’.  God has equipped us with the Word so that our mouth is like a ‘sharpened sword’.  All of this so that we may live into verse four: “You are my servant… in whom I will display my splendor”.

Chosen by God, created for a purpose, equipped to fulfill that purpose.  Yes, this is what it says in Isaiah and throughout the Bible.  Yes, it can be hard to live into our call to serve God.  But it is what God desires for us, what God has planned for us.  So what is it that keeps us from living into what God created us to be?  I believe there are two culprits: us and Satan.

We doubt.  We worry.  We think ourselves not up to the task.  We think our faith or knowledge too limited to serve God.  We think our time has not yet come.  We remember past failures.  We fear rejection or criticism.  Then Satan partners with us and whispers lies into our minds.  Man, that is too much for you.  Woman, you could never do that.  Son, what if they ask you this question?  Daughter, remember the last time you tried to share your faith?  Satan, the great deceiver, fears that we will believe and cling to the truths and promises we find in the Word.  The devil fears that we will trust in God and will call upon God for all we need.  Satan knows the truth: nothing is impossible with God.

To our doubt and worry, God promises: I will be with you.  To our poor self-confidence, God promises: I will never leave or foresake you.  To our lack of felt knowledge, God promises: I will send the Holy Spirit to remind you of all things.  To our past failures, God promises: I have plans to prosper you.

Today’s passage ends with, “my reward is with God”.  This day may we trust fully into the promises of God, looking forward to the promise of life eternal.  This day may we may we embrace our role as servant of the most high God, knowing that God is with us, living our lives to bring glory to God.


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Trust

Reading: Matthew 11: 7-11

At times, we all go through what John the Baptist’s followers are going through.  Someone who has been a leader in our church or community or organization is no longer present.  They have moved on to another place or they have passed on.  To be filled with questions and doubts and fears is a normal reaction.  We wonder who will fill the void.  We wonder how the void will be filled.

John has been put in prison.  He had led a powerful ministry out in the desert and had positively changed many people’s lives.  So instead of trusting in God and expecting God to do something amazing next, the followers worry and fret.  So Jesus asks them, in essence, why they followed John and why people came out to see him.  What drew you and others to John?

Jesus begins by asking if they went out to see a reed swayed by the wind.  Well, no, John was rock solid in his beliefs and in his mission.  His message did not change no matter who came out into the desert: repent for the kingdom of God is near.  Jesus asked if John’s attire and other refinements drew them.  No, of course not – it was about the message and about personally drawing closer to God.  Jesus then harkens the people back to a passage from Malachi.  John was there for a purpose: as a messenger sent to prepare the way.  Jesus has come, John’s work is done.  God’s plan continues.  Jesus ends the section by stating that although John was indeed a great gift from God, in heaven John will be just like everyone else.

In our lives, we too experience people God is using to do kingdom work.  It may be for just a short time or the work may last decades.  The person may be you or I.  But at some point, the work of God in that time and place draws to a close.  There is naturally sadness and often doubt or fear.  Yet in the midst of this, may we allow our faith to move forward, trusting fully in God’s plan and will.  May we be thankful for what God has done while remaining confident that it is all part of God’s plan.  God alone is in control.  Trust God.


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Trust

Reading: Luke 21: 10-19

Today’s passage really lays out what is ahead one day and makes it clear that God will be present through it all.  The reading opens with a view of a grim future that evokes connections to Revelation.  We do not know when, but we do know that the world will be in rough shape with all the earthquakes, famine, violence, and so forth.

Then Jesus steps back and makes it personal.  Jesus speaks of a time of persecution and trial for the believers.  Believers will be persecuted and arrested and put on trial.  Why?  So we can witness to our faith.  It is interesting that we will not be rescued from the trial by our carefully thought-out arguments.  Jesus even says not to prepare any.  He says, “Trust”.  Do not worry – “I will give you words and wisdom”.  Do not rely on your own skills and knowledge and rhetoric, but only rely on your faith.  Just like the Holy Spirit filled Peter and John when they were on trial before the Sanhedrin, so too will the Holy Spirit fill each who trusts fully in Jesus.

This message of trusting in God holds true for all believers in all times.  We need to remember this because we know that in this life we will face times of trial.  There will be difficulties.  There simply will be.  Jesus encourages us in how we approach and walk through these times.  The first thing we must do is trust in God and not in ourselves.  Once we acknowledge our absolute need for God, then we fully open ourselves up to God’s presence to work in our lives.  In this way we will bear witness to our faith in a world that doubts and questions.  By trusting fully in God we demonstrate that God is absolutely in control.  By living out a peace that passes understanding we bear witness to God.

God is faithful and God is loving.  When we trust fully in God, we experience these things.  There will be pain and hurt in this life, but when we hold fast to our faith in God, we retain a hope greater than anything in life can defeat.  May we trust fully in God, knowing our eternity rests securely in God’s loving hands.


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Faith and Trust

Reading: Habakkuk 2: 1-4

Habakkuk has cried out to God.  Now he takes his place on the wall and awaits God’s response.  He has said his piece and waits.  Habakkuk demonstrates great faith.  He will wait upon God.  He is also showing us how to be hopeful in the face of injustice or persecution.  This can be very hard on our own but very possible with God.  Lastly, Habakkuk expects a response from God.  It is as if he is saying, “I’m going to stand over here God.  Come answer me when you are ready”.

God’s answer is not really an answer to Habakkuk’s question.  In essence, God’s answer to “How long?” is: “until I am ready”.  In God’s answer we sense a definite awareness of what Habakkuk was praying about – the injustice and the violence.  But God also says to be patient.  God speaks of an appointed time that will not prove false.  God indicates that Habakkuk is to wait as the answer lingers.  Our passage ends by God stating, “the righteous will live by his faith”.  It echoes what was revealed to Paul, “my grace is sufficient for you”.  God is saying, “be patient, be obedient, be steadfast – I have this”.

In our lives, we too may often ask “How long”?  God’s response is the same to us: trust me, be patient, have faith, be obedient, live righteously, be steadfast.  We know that God is sovereign.  We know that God is omnipotent and omnipresent.  God has it all in the ‘palm of his hand’.  May we, like Habakkuk, faithfully live into God’s plan, even when it requires patience and, above all, faith and trust.


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Bloom

Reading: Jeremiah 29: 1 and 4-7

The Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and hauled off the leaders and gifted people to Babylon as slaves.  Many Israelites were the victims of this forced relocation.  They found themselves slaves in a strange new place, surrounded by a culture much different from their own.  Instead of instructing them to keep isolated, to long to return to Jerusalem, or to rebel, God instead instructs them to settle in, to build homes, to marry off their children.  The message is that this is not temporary.  To further indicate this God instructs them to begin praying for the Babylonians to prosper.

We too can find ourselves in a strange or foreign place.  Sometimes this is physical.  Our parent or spouse receives a new job or is transferred and we find ourselves in a new place amongst many new faces.  It can be when we head off to college or to our first ‘real job’ and we come to realize we are alone in a new world.  Sometimes our new surroundings are emotional.  We come home to find out a divorce looms and life is suddenly altered.  We receive the phone call that a loved one has passed and life is forever different.  Or one day, in the middle of a normal day, we realize that we are lost in life or are just drifting along and we long for an anchor, for a purpose.  And, of course, all of these physical and emotional changes affect our spiritual life too.

God instructed the Israelites to become part of their new surroundings.  God wanted them to grow, to multiply, to prosper in this new place.  When all else was stripped away, all the Israelites had to rely on was God.  God was the one constant for the people.  In the midst of our own times of exile, God calls out to us as well.  When all else seems new or foreign, God is still the same.  Like the Israelites, our instructions are the same: trust in God alone, cling to God alone, and bloom where God has planted us.  May we trust in God’s plans and may we obediently follow God’s will as we follow wherever God leads.


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The Rich man, Lazarus, or…

Reading: Luke 16: 19-31

If asked which character we would like to be in today’s reading, there would be a long pause before we answered.  If we look at the end of the story, we all want to be Lazarus.  We would all choose heaven as our eternal destination.  But within the story, do we want to be poor beggars in this life?  When we are really honest, we’d prefer to be both the rich man and Lazarus – the rich man now and Lazarus later.

So we finally settle on being Lazarus?  Or do we settle on being the rich man?  Truth be told, when we look at the model of our faith, at Jesus, we see the middle ground.  Jesus certainly did not pursue wealth yet was definitely content with life.  He did not dress in expensive clothes or eat gourmet food.  But He was not starving and always had a place to live His head at night.  Jesus trusted fully in God alone.  He knew God’s love intimately and fully trusted that God would provide for His every need.

The rich man only truly saw Lazarus when he died.  He finally saw what Jesus sees all the time.  He saw them as they were.  In everyone Jesus saw and encountered, He sought to meet their need.  Sometimes even they did not know their own real need, so Jesus sometimes delved below the surface.  He got to know people that others avoided or shunned.  He entered into their lives and walked alongside them.  He did what the rich man never would have done.

The rich man, Lazarus, or Jesus?  Who do we strive to be more like?  It is an obvious answer but a hard path to walk.  May the power and presence of the Holy Spirit lead us on the path of Jesus, fully trusting in God, loving all of God’s children.


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Dwell

Reading: Psalm 91: 1-6

The psalmist finds great refuge in God and wants us to do the same as well.  The pestilence, disease, evils that creep in the night, the snares – so much that the psalmist faced!  Our reality is that we too face much.  Children too often grow up on their own, young adults enter the ‘reap world’ often with a huge debt load or without the education necessary to earn a living wage, and our elderly are too often housed in a facility, largely forgotten by family.  It is no wonder people are longing for love, hope, mercy, justice, and a sense of security and belonging.  Life can be hard.  But into this challenging scene the Lord our God tries to make a way.  God desires to bring us thelove, hope, mercy, justice, and a sense of security and belonging that we all seek.

The psalmist reminds us that God seeks to be our refuge and our shelter.  But God will not force us into choosing to receive these things.  “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High” is how the Psalm begins.  He who dwells.  We have a role to play in experiencing rest, cover, a shield about us, and an absence of fear.  We must choose to dwell each day in God’s presence.  To dwell in another’s presence implies a long-term relationship, one with some commitment.  To dwell in God’s presence does not involve flitting in and out as it suits our needs.

When we dwell in God’s presence we are constantly in contact with God.  We turn to God in prayer throughout the day.  We spend time each day reading and meditating upon the Word.  Through these disciplines we come to know and trust in God.  It is then that we begin to find thelove, hope, mercy, justice, and a sense of security and belonging that we so desire.  May we each dwell in God’s presence this day and every day.


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Bold Trust

Reading: Jeremiah 32: 6-15

Shelter is one of our most basic needs.  To have a place to call home provides stability and a sense of well-being.  Your day is different when you know you have a place of refuge and a place to lay your head down at the end of the day.  As the Babylonians assaulted the city, the words of Jeremiah’s prophecy echo in their heads.  They know they will be defeated and carried off into exile in Babylon.  The Israelites future is scary and full of unknowns.

Into this scene steps Jeremiah’s cousin Hanamel.  God has told Jeremiah that Hanamel is coming to sell him some family land in his hometown.  Buying land seems an odd choice when they about to be uprooted and carried off to a foreign land.  But God had told Jeremiah about Hanamel’s visit so he goes ahead and buys the land.  Most of us would have said, “Let’s just wait and see how this thing with the Babylonians turns out”.

But Jeremiah is banking on God’s promises.  He knows that the Israelites are God’s chosen people and always will be.  He knows God’s promise that one day “houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in the land”.  It may be ten years or four hundred years.  It does not matter because God’s word is good.  One day God will restore Israel.

At times God will ask us to step out into a place where we must trust what we know about God.  Perhaps God is asking you to do so right now in your life.  If not now, know that God will.  This is because trust is an essential element in our relationship with God.  In this place of trust we begin to say “your will” instead of “my will”.  As we sense God’s call to step out in faith may we each do so, boldly trusting in God alobe.