Jeremiah 1:12 "I will hasten MY Word, to perform it."
Can God be trusted? This is something that must be decided at the very onset of our Christian journey. Most of us find trusting God is something we can quickly agree intellectually is true. However, trusting God is not something we can agree to in our day to day living.
"Forever Oh Lord, Thy Word is settled in Heaven". "God is not a man that He should lie". "Hath He not said?" "Will He not do?" All these verses assure us that He can be trusted but still we doubt.
David Livingston, the great missionary explorer of Africa, speaking of God's promises in the Bible, said, "These are the Words of a Gentleman. He does not lie". God is, indeed, a Gentleman.
He has given us many promises which are ours to act on in faith. We must act! We must reach up and take the promise that meets our needs, from the shelf, and proclaim it for our use. He waits for us to do this, in true gentlemanly fashion. Yet even as we are reaching for the promise to make it ours, He immediately begins to go to work on the problem for us. We take that first step toward Him and before our foot touches the ground, He has already gone to work to help us.
God used the Children of Israel as an Oracle People. He made their very lives on the stage of history, reveal to us through the Bible record of that history, WHO GOD IS and WHAT HE WANTS TO BE TO and FOR US. The Old Testament is a record of God keeping His Word down through the centuries. Over and over, the Word shows His faithfulness in keeping His Word, demonstrating for our benefit that HE can indeed be trusted.
A well known bible scholar of the last century used the mailing of a letter at the local post office to demonstrate our lack of trust in God in handling our everyday problems. We go to the post office and drop an envelope containing very important documents into the letterbox. We then go blithely on our way confident that the US Postal Service will convey this letter with its important contents to its recipient, putting full trust and confidence in the postal service to perform.
However when it comes to trusting God, we completely fail.
We take our airmail letter of faith to the post office and we put our hand, holding tightly onto the letter, into the letterbox and we stand there, hanging on to it, afraid to let go of it. "What if it gets lost?", we ask ourselves.
Finally, we get up the courage to let go of the letter and it drops into the box. Do we get in our car and drive home leaving our faith problem in God's Hand? No way! We stand there and wait until the postal employee comes and empties the box and takes the contents of the box into the post office building. Do we get in our car and drive home then? Oh no! We get in our car alright but we drive around to the back of the building where outgoing mail is being loaded onto a truck. We follow the truck to the airport. We watch the mail get loaded on to a plane.
Do we then get in our car and drive home, trusting God to keep His Word? Absolutely not. We charter a plane that flies along side the plane carrying the mail, to make sure our faith letter is going to its correct destination. This analogy is a bit ludicrous but it does demonstrate the reluctance we have to totally turn our problems over to God and trust Him to help us solve them.
We give Him our problems that we have been accumulating for months, on Sunday and by Monday morning (since He has not solved them all as yet) we promptly take them all back. We are told in the Word to roll our problems on to Him. That word, "roll", is one used in camel driving. It means to have the camel kneel down, and the workers loading the camel, roll the bundles they are carrying on their backs, off onto the camel's back. Once the camel stands up, there is no way to get the bundles back. This is how we are to roll our burdens off, onto Him, never to take them back until He has dealt with them.
David wrote in his early years, "that time I am afraid, I will trust in Him". In later years he wrote, " I will trust and not be afraid". He had learned to trust. God is looking for a people who will trust Him. That is the only thing He wants from us, "trust". Trust is much more important to Him than any "works" that we can do to demonstrate our "goodliness" or "Godliness".
"Cast your cares upon Him, for He cares for you." Whatever you are facing today, "roll" it onto Him, claiming the Word of Promise that fits your need. Confident that the Invisible Presence, Who is always with us, Who never leaves us or forsakes us, will go to work in your behalf immediately. He will see you through whatever you are facing today and all your tomorrows. Yes, God can be trusted. He wants your trust. He is Jehovah Joshua, our Helper. Give Him your problems. He knows all about them but He wants YOU to ask specifically for His Help, enumerate them, one by one. Give Him a try.
"He that has helped thee hither to, will help thee all thy journey through".
Lee Caroline Whittmer's article is courtesy of GoTellItOnaTeeShirt.com. Go Tell It On A Tee Shirt is a promotional apparel company offering competitive wholesale prices; top USA brands; immediate availability in USA with impeccable silk screening and embroidery with quintessential customer service.
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