Over the course of the past week, we’ve attempted to create intentional encounters with God. There is a collision that occurs when our perspective of how things are or should be collides with the truth. Yet, when we run smack into the truth and the way we see things gets challenged, we typically do not respond by surrendering. Why is that? It comes down to a simple, but unbelievably challenging question: whom do you trust?
Proverbs 3:5-6 (NASB)
5 TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.
Whether we realize it or not, the way we think of God affects how we approach Him. Understanding a person’s character is what ultimately determines whether we place our trust in them. There is such an incredible tendency for us to define God by our own standards and we invent a god that is not a thing like our creator.
This doesn’t cause a problem until we run into God because one cannot trust what they do not know. We try and comprehend Him from our vantage point and perspective. Yet, this would be similar to looking down your nose to see the mountains. You must look up because you don’t behold something that is incomprehensible. The only way we can conquer this distortion is striving to see God as God. One must start by looking up and exploring Scripture to understand the true heart of God.
Fortunately for humanity, God did not keep His identity a secret for only the truly enlightened to grasp. He proclaimed His nature in the Bible for all to see and experience. The scriptures are where God shares who He is and how He is. When someone reads this book and reflects on its’ content, their picture of God becomes clearer and more refined. Understanding His heart has the ability to drastically alter and revolutionize an individual’s life. The ability to trust lies in knowing His heart.
Yet, with that said, we must return to Proverbs 3:5 and confront a critical 3 letter word. It amazes me how inserting a simple word into a sentence can drastically alter its impact. Oh, how we wish the author, King Solomon, put an out clause when it came to the places of our heart where we’re required to trust. We want him to say we only have to “trust in the Lord with select parts of your heart” or “trust in the Lord until it gets uncomfortable” or even “trust in the Lord on your own terms.”
Instead, Solomon charges us to trust our Creator with A-L-L our heart, including those places that have remained off limits for far too long. Only you know those situations where you are resistant to give up control or hesitate to have faith. Today, when you ponder those areas, ask yourself: whom do I trust? This is why the truth that God’s word is living and active, found in Hebrews 4:12,13 is so important. You must allow God to do the delicate surgery to separate between joint and marrow, soul and spirit. By giving God access to your heart you are able to see its true state. It’s through this encounter where God can finally form and shape your heart.
Lord, I ask you to help me. Too often I lean hard on my thinking and my ways. There are several areas where I cling to my head and fail to trust you. Lord, I confess my hesitancy to give up control. I submit my wisdom to you and ask you for direction with ________________. Lord, thank you for being trustworthy and good. Amen.
Today you read how you are suppose to “trust in the Lord with ALL your heart.” What keeps you from complete trust? What causes this resistance? Where are those places where you hesitate to trust?
August 2, 2011 at 7:06 am
It is funny how God will answer prayer. I am learning that sometimes that He answers my prayers in ways that I could never have imagined before I even began to pray that prayer. I can remember praying on more than one occasion that I wanted to learn how to trust Him more. Then 18 months ago, I had a collision with God and where He stared me down a path that I would have never in my life expected or even had considered that I was holding out on Him with.
Proverbs 3:5&6 was the scripture that I read in my morning quite time the morning that I found out that I was to be laid off from UNCW. God was starting a new chapter in my walk with Him. On where I was to learn to “Trust in Him with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding” to provide for me and my family. This has not been easy. I have learned over the past 18 month just how deeply the culture we live in trains us to rely on self and what I create to provide for me and my family. It extreamly head to learn to trust, especially after long work carrer trusting in my abilites.
However, God is showing up and teaching me each day how to trust in Him. It is not easy, there is the part of me that wants do things that I know, but look as where that has gotten me. I am not there yet, He has more to teach me and it is hard. Yet at this point, the adventure after the collision wiht God has been sweeter than hard. He is not through yet and He still has more to teach me, but I am slowly learning a new way of life in faith and trust in my God who Provides for me.
August 2, 2011 at 7:20 am
I believe the major cause of distrust in my life is FEAR. The Word says that “perfect love casts out all fear”. I believe I need a deeper encounter with the reality of His love for me, deep in those places between the joint and marrow, the soul and spirit I need to get a deeper knowing of His love for me. I have gone through seasons of what I thought was complete abandonment to the will of God in my life in every area, my relationship with Him, my husband, my children, work, etc. and when things didn’t turn out or go the way I thought they should I think I thought I missed it somehow. But I am starting to realize that obedience to Him may not look the way I think, it doesn’t necessarily produce “the american dream” (imagine that). So when I approach God now and seek to trust Him with ALL of my heart I have to ask Him to help remove my idea of what His response and His love is going to look like in my life. I have to be ready for Him to define my life and what it is going to look like and recieve His love. His love often looks and feels different than I think it should. In this place I am learning to trust Him and not my expectations, which are usually put in place by the culture around me and the beliefs I have absorbed from my culture. I have to let my Creator define what love is and what my expectations for my life should be. This has actually been a painful process I am still in the middle of. But the more I focus on Him, His Word, and yield to His truth the more peace I experience and the more I am learning to trust Him. Wow, didn’t mean to have so much to say, have a great day PC3!
August 2, 2011 at 8:15 am
My fears and misplaced trust and faith, that I seem to put everywhere BUT in God, is what has kept me from placing ALL of my faith in God. I constantly worry about our financial situation instead of putting ALL of my faith into God. I have put more faith into my doctors in hopes that they would someday be able to heal my body and the constant pain I am in, instead of turning to God and having complete faith that He can and WILL heal me, IF I will TRUST Him COMPLETELY to do so. There are so many areas of my life that I have trouble letting go of the false perception of control that I think I have and to just trust in God, that He will use every situation and circumstance for good in my life. Everyday, I am practicing, and each day I find myself talking to God more and more. I find myself talking to God when problems and pain arise now, instead of just reacting to the situation in flesh, I am beginning to look up to God in faith. Truly amazing where practice can take you, if you allow it to. As much as Mike has drilled the importance of quiet time into our heads, I am happy to say that I am FINALLY beginning to grasp the extreme importance of it to strengthening my walk with God, and everything that encompasses. It’s not an easy thing to do everyday, there will always be some reason that I can come up with not to, but I am deciding to take a leap of Faith, and trusting in God with all that I can, and praying for Him to help me to give Him the rest of my heart. I’ve tried it my way for many years now, and it’s not working. Now, with practice, I have Faith, that God will show me how to trust in Him in every situation, with ALL of my heart.
August 2, 2011 at 8:53 am
It seems easy to trust when things are going well. It is in the struggles where I find it most difficult to completely trust. These devotions are so encouraging to me as I practice slowing down, giving thanks and fully trusting.
August 2, 2011 at 8:54 am
Question #3 is: What are those places where you hesitate to trust? For me one of those areas is trusting God with my day, the time I have been given to get done what to me seems like alot to get done.
Several months ago God got my attention on my need to do some serious slowing. I’m a juggler, a list maker, a just-get-it-done kind of person. For me I have had to put some things into practice. One has been to first thing sit before God for a bit of time in quiet just acknowledging Him as God. As God of this day that He has so graciously given me to share with Him.
I used to do this better back when I first gave my life to God about 9 years ago, but somewhere along the way I got too busy. Often busy doing what I would call God’s work. How in the world can one be so busy doing God’s work that one becomes too busy for God!? Sounds a little crazy, but that happened to me.
If I don’t sit first with the Lord I quickly just jump on a fast track to just-get-it-done-ville and so caught up in the busyness of the day that God gets crowded out! And then I have to ask myself, who have I crowded out. The loving God of the universe who made me and loves me dearly and longs to spend the day with me. Yes, with little ole me and little ole you!
There, things tend to become much more like drudgery. My one word for this year is “enjoy”……well! How am I going to “enjoy” this gift of today if it all seems like drudgery!? I have found that it starts by sitting submissively before God, acknowledging Him as God and thanking Him for this day and the privilege that I get. The privilege of spending this day with Him.
Communion with God, that is what it means to pray without ceasing. I have to ask myself questions when God awakens me to paths that I am starting down that do not lead to Him. For me, regarding this, the question was: how can I commune with God if I’m living in “just-get-it-done-ville?” Juggling! I can’t, because then I’m not even present in the moment, but rather my mind is already racing on to the next thing that I need to get done.
God is present in each moment and I was not even living in those moments. I was rather always racing ahead to the next thing. This is where I had found myself, until God began to just mess with me, mess with my days…(well, not really my days..they are His days!) How did He mess with them? By interrupting them. I hate interruptions. After all, I’m a just-get-it-done-er. Today I can sit here and type this and say thank You so much God for your recent interruptions. Why, because I have realized now how much I missed spending quiet time with my heavenly Father. I desperately need His help every day!
It hasn’t been easy. I still very easily start down the path to “get-it-done-ville. But I have put some things in practice that God has used to help me direct my first thoughts to Him.
Everyone is different and thus different times will work for different people, but most imperative is that we learn to slow our pace and get still enough to see God. God who loves us and longs to be a part of our day. Lord of each day that He has so graciously given to us. What better One to trust this day with, than the One who made it and gave in to us in the first place. One thing I know for sure, I cannot trust myself with this day.
August 2, 2011 at 10:54 am
Wow. When I opened up the devotional this morning it took me back. Serveral years ago my trust in God was shattered. I still believed in Him but the trust issue was a problem. There was a time in our lives I thought God would rescue us, but He did not. It seemed that way at the time, because it was not the way I thought He should have done the rescueing. Now I see that His rescue plan was so much better than my plan. I can’t say that it was not a very painful path but He showed me He could be trusted through it. A walk I could not have done had He not been right there with me showing me with His love. I am so overwhelmed that He did that for me. I did not deserve His kindness by any means. He submerged me in His word and loved me back to spirtual health. What a great reminder about Paul, being shipped wrecked, hanging on a beam to get to shore and than bitten by a snake, but God did rescue Paul. Wow, to think, the people on the ship and the people from Malta saw the true God, because Paul trusted in God with his whole heart. Last summer, I met women from Malta, at a conference and I thought, go Paul, and wondered are these women believers in you, Lord, because of that ship wreck. I guess in all this long story, the verse where it says “trust with your whole heart” hit me in the heart. I realize I want to trust with my whole heart but I still have to go back and remember His characater and who He is and what He has done for us. You think you got it, but than God shows up in your faces and says you got something more to address. Thanks for the bop on the head this morning, to let me know there is something I am ignoring and don’t want to see. Thanks for the heads up!
August 2, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Trusting God is critical. The opposite of a person who trusts in God is found in Zephaniah 3:2: “She obeys no one, she accepts no correction. She does not trust in the Lord, she does not draw near to her God.” I don’t want to be this type of person.
August 2, 2011 at 10:14 pm
I believe that my biggest hindrance in trusting God is that I don’t realize how good God is. God wants better for me than I want for myself. He has shown this to me over and over. He has been so patient with me and I now have peace and so much hope. However, the more I am able to give up, the more I realize I need to give up, so I want to continue in the practice of learning about God’s love for me. I have had a major collision with God and we fought about it for years and then I learned how far God’s love will reach and cover my sin and selfishness. My reasoning was horrible so I am so excited about processing all things through encounter -> formation -> expression. Hopefully my resistance to complete trust in God will dissipate and I will trust with A-L-L my heart. It’s exciting!