Trust in the Lord Part 1

Trust in the Lord with All Your Heart - Part 1

Proverbs 3:5–6 (AV)

5Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

6In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

I have had some bad beliefs over the course of my life. From an early age I learned to understand that pleasing God meant strict obedience to a lengthy set of rules, commands, and moral virtues and that failure to please Him meant opening the door to His punishment. Eight words from Numbers 32:23 were stuck in my head--“…be sure your sin will find you out.”

Consequently, whenever I did something wrong (according to the Old Testament Law, all subsequent New Testament commands and directives, and the rules taught by my church) I would grovel before the Lord. I would plead with Him to allow me to escape the awful consequences of my actions. I would promise to behave myself in the future.

This was my view of God’s mercy—that He might possibly forego punishment if I really meant it when I said I was sorry. I really did mean it, too. Of course, I would soon fail again and prove to myself that I had not really been sorry after all. But this time, I would really be sorry, and I would really mean it, and I would really do better.

I trusted that the Lord was holy. I trusted that the Lord could not and would not abide sin. I trusted that He was unchanging—in the sense of being unbending in His demand for righteousness from me. He is unbending in His demand for righteousness, but I failed to understand that Jesus had given me His righteousness. (see 2 Corinthians 5:21)

Another bad belief I had was that God was likely to make me suffer. Passages like 1 Peter 4:19 (AV) “Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.” became Scriptural evidence for this bad theology.

This concept terrified me. Based on my wrong understanding of God I believed that if I truly released everything to Him, He would cause me pain. In church the people who seemed to be considered the most spiritual were (at least in my mind) those who had endured the most suffering for Christ. People like Corrie Ten Boom who had gone through the holocaust or Joni Erickson-Tada who God (in my warped thinking) had to make a quadriplegic in order for her to become spiritual enough to truly glorify God and have a ministry.

One time I heard a missionary on a tape talking about her experience in the mission field when militia-fighters broke into her house. She had been violated and suffered terribly, yet in her message she talked about “my lovely Lord Jesus.” That stuck with me because when I heard it, I was amazed that anyone who had been through so much trauma and pain could feel that way about God. I knew that I deeply wanted to know Him like that, but I resigned myself to it never happening as I was unwilling to suffer like that.

Do not misunderstand. I had faith that I would “go to heaven when I die,” but I did not really know God—I did not know His heart—and the truth of the matter was that I did not trust in His goodness or His love.

The effect of all this was that I had to keep everything under my own control because releasing it to him meant that I might have to suffer. I had to deny myself and I constantly walked around in fear and guilt because if I did not behave righteously, I would face punishment and more suffering.

But Abba is not like that. Abba is the perfect Father. We see this picture painted masterfully in the parable that we call “The Prodigal Son.”

Read Luke 15:17–24 (AV) Text in parentheses is mine.

17 And when he (the “prodigal” son) came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,

19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:

23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:

24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.

Father saw His son coming while he was still a long way off.

Father had compassion on His son; even though His son had squandered his dad’s money and lived in a way that did not reflect the family of which he was a part.

Father ran to His son, gave him a big hug and kissed him.

Father put the best robe on him, gave him new shoes, and even the family credit card—a signet ring.

Father killed the fatted calf and threw a big party.

There was no condemnation for the son who was in Father’s family. Only open arms and a “Welcome home!”

In the next installment, we will see that Father is love and we will look at what we can expect from Him because that is who He is.