At some point in one’s growth–particularly for those who have been saved for a while–one comes to a massive decision point: Do I (Can I) trust God with my life?
At this point, you may look around you at Christian parents in ministry, a faithful pastor and his family who barely seem to make it by, or other Christians you know who are either suffering or are perhaps serving in near obscurity. Pride and our natural instinct for self protection (and self-promotion) rise up and scream, “I want more than that! I want better than that!”
We may cloak our resistance in spiritual terms–such as wanting to earn as much as possible to be able to support Christian works around the globe, or some such defense, and I’m not minimizing the need for Christians who actually DO that, rather than getting sucked into the materialism that seems to intensify with success. There are people God has entrusted with material wealth and who are faithfully living on a little while distributing a lot. But the point is, it was God‘s choice to give such a person success–not their own grasping or self-advancement. Undoubtedly it took initiative and hard work on their part, but what I’m getting at is that at some point they also had to decide, “Will I trust God with the outcome?”
And no matter our upbringing or position, when we reach that point of decision–“Will I hold on to my rights to orchestrate my own life, or can I trust God?”–it comes down what we believe about God. Does He know best and want what’s best, or do I? Or you might better phrase it, “Does He love me sufficiently to trust Him, or am I better off loving and pleasing myself?”
When I came to that point as a college student (and it’s a point you may have to re-visit at difficult times throughout life), a friend shared two verses with me. The first is Psalm 84:11, “For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly” [emphasis mine].
The second verse is from a familiar passage in Romans 8, where we usually stop with the wonderful truth of verse 28. But I’d urge you to continue in that passage (which goes on to explain that the ultimate “good” to which God is working everything that touches our lives is our Christ-likeness), to verse 32. That verse asks a question that has only one answer. The verse reads: “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He [the Father] not with Him [Jesus] also freely give us all things?” The answer is, “he won’t.” God has proven He loves us better than we could ever love ourselves by doingfor us what we could never do for ourselves–saving us at the cost of His Son!
God’s value system isn’t material or perishable–it’s eternal and ultimate. Though trusting God may not lead to a life with three houses and two BMW’s, it will lead to a life where EVERYTHING that touches us is truly best for us. It may lead through pain or times when the bank account runs low–or it may not. But the point is, we can trust His love in everycircumstance. We can trust His leading. We can trust His work in our lives. He alone will always do what is only for our ultimate best. And trusting Him with every aspect of our lives will never lead to regret…in this life, or the next!
