Don't Trust God, II of II

Don't Trust God, II of II

October 19, 2015

Proverbs 3:5  "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on our own understanding."

As stated before, you should never JUST trust the Lord---because He will never resolve the situation how you want it to resolve or how you think it should play out.  If you walk through a situation, attempting to trust in the Lord, yet imagine and desire a specific outcome, then you are not truly trusting the Lord.  If you are desiring your scripted outcome for a situation, you are hoping He will answer your prayer request the way you want.  While subtle it may seem, this is not what trusting in the Lord fully means.  Don't trust the Lord if you want your way, as your ways are not His ways.

There are two parts to fully trusting in the Lord.  The first part and most obvious, trust, means assured reliance.  Assured Reliance.  Wow.  When was the last time you had assured reliance upon anything?  There are few things in life that happen with such type of consistency.  One example is the sun.  It rises every morning in the sky, without fail, but many times we cannot see it.  Though we know it is morning, and the clouds cover the light, we have assured reliance upon its presence.  It is always there, doing its job without fail, and to perfection.  Despite the rain or cold weather, you know it is up there, letting off the same brilliance it has ever since you felt its warm embrace upon your face.  This should be the same as the Lord; He is always there, doing His job to perfection and without fail, yet because you can't see Him sometimes, you think He is not present.  You have more trust in the sun than you do the Maker of the sun.  Take this one step further and admit you don't always trust that He is there and you don't always trust that He is doing His job to perfection.  We miss this first part of the equation when it comes to trusting the Lord.  Despite how you feel; you can have assured reliance that He IS doing His job and He is doing it right.

The second aspect of trusting the Lord is found in the second part of the declarative verse.  It reads: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and LEAN NOT ON YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING."  Forgive me, maybe I didn't say that last part clear enough.  LEAN NOT ON YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING.  This means, for those of you who are as obtuse as me, that you cannot imagine or pretend to know how best to resolve a situation.  You have to trust in the Lord and then stop trying to work it out for your self.  Your finite brain, my incomplete understanding, cannot possibly fathom the right resolution to a situation that will be best for the Lord's agenda while simultaneously being in your best interests.  The Lord has your best interests as heart, but that doesn't always mean what is truly good for you will necessarily feel good all the time.  Ironically, when the Lord doesn't work my situations out the way I'd like, I just assume He has failed me, that He is not actually trustworthy.  In actuality, He has not failed me.  He has constructed an outcome that is far better in accomplishing His will and is healthier for me than the resolution I prescribed.

Here is what I have learned.  If I think, even for one moment, how best to resolve a situation, then I am not fully trusting in the Lord.  Furthermore, the stronger I desire my own prescribed outcome, the more disappointed I am in the Lord, though this disappointment is misplaced.  He is fully trustworthy, despite the resolution to your situation, even the resolution to the situation that you don't like.  Look at your history, those perceived imperfect resolutions, and ask the Lord for forgiveness.  Apologize for your lack of understanding and begin to trust that what you got in life was actually OK.  Don't just trust the Lord.  Trust the Lord AND forget all you think you know about how best to work it out.

Don't take my word for it; look it up:  Gen 6-9, Ps 127:1, Proverbs 3, Is 64:4, Rom 8:28, Phil 2:12-13