pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: trust


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Walking Closely

“I promise.”  When do we have to say these words?  It is not usually in everyday life – your boss doesn’t make you promise to finish the project…  We have to promise when we have been exceptionally forgetful or when the other person doubts we will follow through or thinks what we have said is unlikely or impossible.  As adults, in general we do not have to make promises.  Saying we will do something if usually sufficient.

God never has to promise.  His word is always good.  When we come to the point of trusting in God, we come to faith.  True, at times we can struggle, but this too passes.  We may momentarily wonder how God could ever forgive ‘that’ but in time we see God offers forgiveness to all who come with a truly repentant heart.  And we get ourselves to that point and find His grace and love again.

Sometimes we are called to believe something that seems impossible or highly unlikely.  Sometimes our faith calls us to step out into the unknown.  Abraham is a great example for us.  At almost 100 years of age, God told him he would not only have a child but would be the father to many nations.  Abraham chose to believe God with all his heart.  He did not waver.  For this act of full obedience, abraham was credited as being righteous.

Paul tells us that we too are credited with righteousness when we actively pursue and fully trust in God.  Our willingness puts us in a right relationship with God.  When we walk in righteousness, God is close to us.  When we pursue Him, He is easy to find.  May we walk closely with God today, removing all doubts and barriers, so that we can experience His full love, mercy, and joy!

Scripture reference: Romans 4: 18-25


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Active Faith

Faith leads to transformation.  Faith, at its roots, is an active trust in the One who created us, the One we come to know.  Faith moves beyond belief.  It is in the space beyond belief that faith works in and through our lives to change us within.

We have many examples in the Bible of people who allowed faith to be their guide.  For example, once Abraham and Sarah encountered God there was no looking back, only trust in the One who called them forward.  The same was true for many others – Gideon, Esther, the disciples, Paul, Timothy – just to name a few.

Our faith is also a saving faith.  Once we have personally encountered God, our faith rests on His grace.  His grace saves us from our mistakes and reconciles us to Him.  His grace always welcomes us back into relationship with our creator and king.

Like the many who came before, once we start to live into this trust, life will never be the same.  In faith we begin to live into God’s promises, trusting His plan for our lives, seeking to be a part of the opportunities He places before us.  In faith we allow His love to flow through us and into the lives of others.  Our active faith leads us on a journey.  The journey is always towards God presnce and perfection, living into all He has to offer for our lives.

Scripture reference: Romans 4: 13-17


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Trust and Being Faithful

Trust is an interesting concept.  Trust is something we build up over time and we base it upon our experiences with that person.  It is not universal – I may trust a common friend more than a mutual friend does. Once a trust is broken between friends, it is hard to get it fully back.  In our humanity, we struggle with fully giving our trust back to someone who violated it.

How much do you trust God?  How much do I?  Three years ago I entered full-time ministry.  I left teaching after 23 years.  I felt a call to ministry that had gradually built over many years and I finally surrendered to those whispers of God that I felt in my heart.  There was some trust involved – a lot.  But there were also some things that made the decision feel safe – same town and church we had been in for 20 years, tons of family and close friend support…

In Genesis 17 God comes to Abram and Sarai when they were 99 years old.  As they are ready to slide into retirement, God comes along and tells them they are going to start having babies.  He tells them to move to an unknown foreign land.  He tells them that they will be the father and mother of many nations and to change their names, accordingly, to Abraham and Sarah.  And they did.  Trust.  They trusted God completely.

I often wonder where my trust level is.  It is high?  Do I trust God completely?  Or is it low?  One doesn’t really know until put to the test.  God’s call to me was many nudges over a period of time, with a few human voices sprinkled in for good measure.  I never heard God’s voice.  But if a nudge came to move far away, to a distant place, to minister – how much would I trust?  If a nudge came to leave all I know to enter the mission field – where would my trust level be?

I think that if I had a real conversation with God, even if only one-sided, that I would go without question.  But then I wonder…  I hope I am found faithful.  We all do.  Lord God, make me faithful.

Scripture reference: Genesis 17: 1-7 and 15-16


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A Child’s Faith

When a baby is first born it is totally dependant on others for care.  Most babies bond right away with their mother as they are fed, held, and loved.  Soon a father becomes a known, loving presence as well.  Babies bond and come to expect parents to be there when they cry, when they want to be held, when they need changed, and so on.  Even though no parent is perfect, the baby comes to love and trust them.

God is our perfect parent.  As we mature and grow in our faith, we learn that God will take care of our needs.  We learn that He will forgive our sins and restore the relationship with us.  We learn that when we cry out to Him, He will be there.  We learn that no matter how long we wander away, He will be right there by our side when we turn back towards Him.

Perhaps this is the kind of love and trust that Jesus was talking about when He said that we need to have the faith of a little child.  Maybe Jesus is calling us to live a life totally dependant on Him.  Maybe Jesus wants us to cry out only to Him when we are in need.  Maybe Jesus wants us only to come to Him when we find ourselves in sin or are wrestling with temptation.

The more we grow to love and trust in Him, the more we come to live and to love like Him.  May we come to develop the faith of a little child.

Scripture reference: Psalm 22: 25-31


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One Day We Will Know

In my daily walk with Christ there are two things I wrestle with: how to explain why God allows tragedy to occur and why we continue to be tempted.  I wrestle with these two especially because they are things that cause one to question or doubt God.

God loves us as His children.  He provides for our needs as our Father.  God even offered His only Son on a cross for our salvation.  There is no question that He loves us and wants the very best for us.

Maybe part of the necessity for these things that we wrestle with is to remind us that daily we must make the choice to live that day for Christ.  Once we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, there is an overarching peace and presence that permeates our lives, a sense of knowing that where our eternity rests is secure.

Another part of the wrestling comes from our inability to fully comprehend God.  We know He loves us, just not how much.  We do not know why tragedy occurs or why we are tempted often, but by faith we trust that God knows.  Sometimes, after a time has passed, we are blessed with some understanding or insight into ‘why’ but not always.  Sometimes we must simply trust into Him who loves us more than we can understand.  In faith we live into this, fully confident that one day we will know the fullness of His love.

Scripture reference: Isaiah 40: 21-31


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Trust

We often live in this weird balance between knowing God can fill all our needs and trying to fill them with everything but God.  What we know in our minds and what we do with our actions just don’t connect.  Struggle and frustration are often the results.

I most often try to fill my needs with myself.  I fall into the trap that I can do it,  figure it out, make it happen on my own.  After failing I usually realize that only God can do it.  He can use me, but He is the source.  I need to first learn to turn to Him all of the time instead of just some of the time.

Our struggles can be emotional, physical, spiritual, relational, occupational or combinations of these and more.  There is also a vast array of ways to try and fill our needs but really only one place we should start.

In verse 8 David writes, “Trust in Him at all times, O people: pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge.”  Our refuge is strong and loving and completely worthy of our trust, for He never fails.

Scripture reference: Psalm 62: 5-12


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God’s Sacred Child

In the middle section of Psalm 139 we catch an amazing picture of God and His relationship to us.  We see the power and omnipotence of God in the words that speak of our own creation and in those that remind us that God’s thoughts are more vast that the grains of sand.  We also see a God who saw each of our unformed bodies and wove us together.  We are also told that all of our days are ordained and are written in the book of life.

Our God is a big god.  Yet how easily we slip into doubt and how easily we think we can do it on our own.  The cares and concerns of this world can become our focus.  In this struggle we often turn inward and seek our own solutions instead of turning upward and seeking God.

Our God is also a god of details.  He knows each of us from our very beginning to our last day.  His hands formed us.  His thoughts surround us.  If we choose to live with these things as our focus, then we easily turn to God in times of stress, pain, anxiety.  We easily walk in His strength and comfort.  We are wonderfully made and loved deeply.  May we live as God’s sacred child this day and every day, trusting in our Creator and walking in His ways.

Scripture reference: Psalm 139: 13-18


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By His Strength Alone

At times we all have experienced God’s strength and presence.  Sometimes this occurs in a powerful worship or prayer experience.  Sometimes this occurs in the midst of an extraordinary event like a child’s birth or in the profound moments of a tragedy.  So we all know what it feels like to experience God’s strength and presence.

Yet so often in life and particularly in the day to day of life, we try to live by our own strength.  Society reinforces this by lifting up the self-made person and exulting those who can find success on their own.  Society devalues those who cannot.

The Advent readings for this week draw us back to the ideas that we do not live only for ourselves and that we cannot make it by our own strength alone.  As we live on th edge of God’ holy promises we realize that we are saved by His strength alone.  Just as when Mary trusted and fully relied on God, we too can feel our fears and anxieties melt away.  We too can come to realize that His favor rests upon us as well.  We can call upon His strength and presence in the day to day and experience it each moment.  Through this we are empowered, strengthened, and encouraged to do His will each day in our world.

Scripture reference: Romans 16: 25-27


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We Too Will Be Amazed

In the story of Israel crossing the Jordan, God only works when the priests come to rest in the middle of the raging river.  Once they stop in the middle of the rushing waters and trust in Him to act, then the Lord provides a safe way for the people to cross over to the other side.  Because they rested and trusted, God provided them a way that they could not provide for themselves.

Rest was an important part of Israel’s faith.  For the Hebrews, the Sabbath was strictly observed as a day of rest from work and as a day when they would worship God.  In this time of rest, God goes to work.  As they rest and seek God, He responds by coming to them, by being a presence in their lives.So it must have made sense to the priests to stop and rest in the middle of the river, to wait on God to work.

In our society today, rest seems almost a foreign concept.  We are so busy.  For many, rest is that time at the end of the day when they collapse into bed at the end of another busy day.  We even fill our weekends with all that we did not get done during our busy week.

God still calls for us to rest in Him.  He desires for a personal relationship above all else.  And that requires time.  To connect with God in an intimate way we must carve out time daily where it is just God and us.  We must allow Him time to work in our lives.  When we do these things, we too will be amazed by what God will do in our lives.

Scripture reference: Joshua 3: 7-17


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God’s Mighty, Loving Hands

Sometimes a situation or a conflict can become so consuming that we lose sight of God and our faith.  We allow ourselves to be lost in the trial and forget our God who can and wants to save us.  Like Moses, when he came down the mountain and found the people worshipping the idol, we too can lash out and allow our frustrations to rule us.

But God calls us to be faithful to Him and wants us to go to Himself first all of the time.  God so loves us and seeks to have the most intimate relationship we can muster up.  God longs for us to think of and go to Him in both the good times and in the times of trial.  He wants to just pour strength and guidance into us to lead us through those times when we are angry or frustrated or perplexed.

Despite all of this, we still fail now and then.  We still seek to solve it or to work it out on our own.  But soon enough we are on our knees.  Having borne all we can bear, we  turn to Him.  Without condemnation and without judgment, God comes to our side.  And when the crisis has passed, we wonder why we did not turn to God at the beginning.  (I bet God wonders this too.)  Yet as we grow in our faith, we learn to turn sooner.  We come to learn that it is ALL in God’s mighty. loving hands all of the time.  May we all learn to make God our first stop.

Scripture reference: Exodus 34: 1-12