Trust in the Lord

Trust in the Lord with All Your Heart

Proverbs 3:5–6 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.” (NASB 2020)

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 “Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God are to entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.” (NASB 2020) 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.”

Luke 15:17–24 “But when he [the “prodigal” son] came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired laborers have more than enough bread, but I am dying here from hunger! ‘I will set out and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired laborers.”’ “So he set out and came to his father. But when he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet; and bring the fattened calf, slaughter it, and let’s eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’ And they began to celebrate.” (NASB 2020)

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 fattened 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.

God is love.

1 John 4:8 “The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (NASB 2020)

1 John 4:16 “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.” (NASB 2020)

From scriptures like this we learn in literal terms that Father is love. This might cause us to ask, “what does love do?” We find a beautiful answer in 1 Corinthians 13:4–8a “Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails” (NASB 2020)

God is love and this is the way love behaves. Read the passage and replace the word “love” with the word “Father.”

1 Corinthians 13:4–8 (Larry Eiss Version)

Father is patient, He is kind, and He is not jealous. Father does not brag, and He is not arrogant. He does not act in ways unbecoming of His perfection. Father does not seek His own. Neither is Father easily provoked. He does not keep a record of wrongs he has suffered. Father does not rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth. Father bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Father never fails.

This is a God who can be trusted fully. Father is not waiting to punish us, and He is not demanding that we suffer for Him.

We have seen that God is not an angry sadistic autocrat in the sky waiting to punish us and make us suffer. We have seen that He is love, and we examined what scripture says we can expect from love. In this final segment we will address the practical ramifications of all this.

Gods’ wrath was poured out on Jesus at the cross. Because of this, we who are in Christ no longer need to fear judgment. We read in John 3:36 that “The one who believes in the Son has eternal life; but the one who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (NASB 2020) Those who reject coming to the Father through Jesus Christ remain in their sin and separated from the Source of Life. However, in John 5:24, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. (NASB 2020)

Since then Father is not waiting to punish us, and He is not demanding that we suffer for Him, can we expect our life to be a bed of roses such that we walk through life without trouble? Does it mean that we always get the best parking spot, that we are first in line in the grocery store, that we have a Bentley and a Rolls Royce in the driveway? Does it mean that we and our families never face illness, disability, or conflict? Does it mean that we will not face persecution because we are the Lord’s beloved children? Clearly that is not what we experience.

John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” (NASB 2020)

I think the key to all this for me was Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.” (NASB 2020) I have thought a lot about this passage over the years. It has always been clear to me that being in Christ does not mean a life of getting whatever we want, yet at first glance this passage seems to say that we will.

The way to understand this is that as we delight ourselves in the Lord (get to know His loving heart) our desires begin to fall in line with His. So, His will is what we want. He changes what we ourselves want. He does not force a change in our behavior or even in our thinking, yet we are transformed as our minds are renewed.

Philippians 2:13 makes this clear, saying, “for it is God who is at work in you, both to desire and to work for His good pleasure.” (NASB 2020) Holy Spirit living in and through us changes what we want. This is part of our becoming conformed to the image of Christ that Paul talks about in Romans 8:29 “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son…” (NASB 2020)

As we live in Christ and experience oneness with Him, our thinking, and our desires—the things we want—are gently changed so that we want what He wants. And this is a genuine change and not something concocted out of willpower. It is a real shift of the heart toward what God desires. We truly do want what He wants.

As this conformation to His image progresses, fleshly behaviors and attitudes fall away. They lose their appeal because they are seen for what they are—works that lead to death. We come to see that these attitudes and actions are not good for us, that they hurt others, and that they do not satisfy us. They are damaging and destructive and their appeal is finally lost.

This change in our hearts also leads to a more relaxed and restful attitude about the future. When what may happen is truly left in Father’s hands it can be something of an adventure to see what he has planned. When the events of life themselves, not just the outcome of those events, are given over to God, the result is a quiet peace even amidst chaos.

Please do not think that I have attained my black belt in walking in peace and joy. That is certainly not the case. What I am saying is that throughout our lives the Spirit continues to prompt us to look to the Lord in difficulty more often than we used to.

Here is what Paul shared with the Corinthian saints in 2 Corinthians 4:16–18 “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer person is decaying, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (NASB 2020)

This is an image of spiritual growth. The fruit of it is a more relaxed attitude and reduced emotional turmoil. Perhaps even more surprising is that, without our even noticing, the aroma of Jesus is caught by others. They see that there is something different about us. That “something” is our lovely Lord Jesus.

I want to encourage you that it is safe to trust in the Lord with all your heart. Hold nothing back. He is faithful, He is love. You will not be disappointed.