‘Trust me, I’ve got your back.’ How many times have you heard someone in good faith tell you that? A dozen, two dozen, more? How many times have you agreed to do just that? And, how many times did the promise of protecting you work? How many times did it not work?
In my case, it runs about 50 percent. When it works, it is because the person dedicated himself or herself to follow through. When it doesn’t work, I hear multiple excuses of what happened or why he or she decided not to try.
Of course, I too have made that promise of trust to others with the best of intentions and have failed and succeeded at various times. It’s not that I am trying to put blame on anyone for trying and failing. It is that I have come to realize that we are not always in control to make such promises.
Only God can fulfill a promise because He has control. He has the ability to create and destroy at will. He also has the wisdom and understanding to know when to do something or not about a situation.
In our quest to have a love relationship with God, we initially rely on wisdom, faith and truth to bring it into focus. Realizing these are all good aspects for our life, we now make the decision to trust that this will work because both God and we want it to be so.
God’s trust lies in his purpose for creating us and giving us the free will to make such a decision. Our choices are predicated on overcoming our ability to be obedient to God’s will versus falling short due to belief that either we or the world offers something better; even though it is not everlasting like God’s promise.
Two Bible verses in Psalms and Proverbs provide us with an insight as to what direction we should take:
“It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.” Ps. 118:8
“Trust
in the Lord with all your heart, on your own intelligence rely not;” Prov. 3:5
In other words, neither the
world nor we are capable of making the right decisions. Both are too selfish in what they want as an
end result to allow God to provide what you need versus what one wants, even if
it is not good to have. God is love and
so everything He does is about what is best for everyone, no matter what else
is happening.
We, on the other hand, are too
myopic in our vision. We don’t always
weigh the evil aspects of something we want if it could cause a limitation in
the end result.
In St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, he
writes that trusting in God is a product of faith that God grants us. We trust in God, seeking His security,
believing His promises and relying on Him despite any problem. Trust is a natural consequence of faith.
“…salvation is yours through
faith. This is not your own doing, it is
God’s gift; neither is it a reward for anything you have accomplished, so let
no one pride himself or herself on it.
We are truly His handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to lead the life of
good deeds which God prepared for us in advance.” Eph.
2:8 – 10
The next time someone asks you
to trust them, make sure that the path they are taking is in tandem with God’s
profession of faith: The gift that keeps on giving towards a life of good deeds
both on earth and in heaven.
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