We will never be able to understand all of the ways of God. This devotional looks at how He asks us to commit ourselves to trust Him, even when we don’t understand and are in anything but silent circumstances.
Nuggets
- Trusting in Him means we focus on the Who instead of the what.
- Trusting in Him entails a commitment to live for Him.
Devotions in Silencing Our Hearts at Christmastime series
We said in the last devotion that Mary and Joseph just had to trust God that He would do what He said He would. Faith came later.
Does that mean trust is no longer needed now that we do have faith? No.
Let’s dig a little deeper into trust.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of nuggets for the series.
What Is Trust?
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (Prov. 3: 5 ESV)
Trusting in Him means we focus on the Who instead of the what.
God wants us to trust Him. Trust is assurance that His promises are true.
The trust part is how we get to faith. It is how we reason it out.
Yes, some of it has to be our seeing exactly how things are. We have to understand to some extent.
We have to work out why we believe what we believe. Some day, we may be called upon to defend our beliefs.
But Dennen made a great observation. He wrote, “The question is, not whether we shall use reason, but what are its limits? Shall we accept only what we can understand and explain, and refuse all which does not quadrate with our reason? … Much that is beyond reason does not contradict reason.”
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Too many worldview people think they have to understand everything. They have to know the who, what, where, why, and when.
No, we just have to know the Who.
We are never going to understand everything. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55: 8-9 ESV).
How are they not God’s ways?
- God is all-knowing. We aren’t.
- God is eternal. Yes, we will live eternally with Him, but we weren’t there at the creation of time.
- God is all-seeing. We aren’t.
- God is all powerful. We aren’t.
Baker gave us a good explanation of what it means — practically — to trust God. It means we willingly follow His counsel in our lives.
As being all-knowing, God is able to advise us in actions to take and in what to believe. Since His advise is best all the way around, we should look to Him in all things.
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But Solomon put a caveat on this verse. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart …” (Prov. 3: 5 ESV).
We can’t give God half our hearts. We can’t believe in Him partially but follow the worldview for the rest.
God has to be all in our hearts. He doesn’t want our allegiance divided between Him and the world.
If we lean on our own understanding, we are looking at things through a worldview lens. That makes it through an evil, sinful view.
There has to be a balance. Yes, we make plans using our own understanding.
However, we first use discernment to find God’s Will. Discernment means we can evaluate the situation and recognize right from wrong.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
We don’t want to leave God out of the equation. We don’t want to shut Him down because we think our ways are so much better.
We want to fully trust in God.
Obtaining Trust
“Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act” (Ps. 37: 5 ESV)
Trusting in Him entails a commitment to live for Him.
How do we obtain this trust? It is a commitment.
What is that to which we are committing? Taylor told us.
- Repentance
- Obedience
- Confession
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Repentance is acknowledging our separation from God and expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to change our sinful ways to ways of righteousness through obedience.
- Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
Obedience means submitting ourselves to the will of God as it is presented to us and living our lives accordingly.
Confession is a declaration that we have sin in our lives and are a repentant sinner, a conscious request for forgiveness of that sin, and the commitment of faith that God, as Sovereign Lord, can and will forgive those sins.
Glossary
Littleton looked at our commitment this way. He wrote, “He persuades us, in such instances [of the flourishing condition of the wicked to the great prejudice and hazard of God’s people], to confidence in God and patience in well-doing; and discovers the estate of pious and ungodly men to be as different, not only in the world to come, but through God’s just judgment many times even in this life, as their principles and practices have been.”
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I know. Let’s try Elaine-speak on that.
- The Psalmist shows us that we can commit ourselves to God because He will be faithful. Even when the worldview seems like it is winning and disciples are being persecuted, we can have confidence in God.
- We need to have patience and keep on doing what is right in God’s eyes.
- Yes, that will accentuate our differences with the worldview people. We don’t have to wait for eternity to see those differences — or for the ungodly to experience God’s judgment.
Bottom line, we can commit to doing what is right in God’s eyes because He is faithful to keep us, even when it puts us at odds with this world.
Littleton added a fourth bullet to Taylor’s list of that to which we are committing. He added walking in the Spirit.
We commit to God because we know we can rely on His wisdom and goodness to provide the knowledge we need to live our lives serving Him.
Making the Connections
So, back to faith and trust. Slade said something very profound. He wrote, “[Faith] produces not only a leaning upon Divine grace on particular occasions of meditation or devotion, but an unfailing regard to God’s providential wisdom and goodness and government in daily life. God is in everything, above all, through all, in all. To those who wholly trust in God, not leaning to their own understanding, but ready in all things to obey His will and Word, the Lord will be a perpetual guide.”
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Faith is the energy with trust as the fuel.
How Do We Apply This?
It is easy to say that this is the Christmas season. Of course, we will have more trust in God because we will be celebrating the reason why we can have faith.
But it isn’t always that way, is it? We have a family funeral on the schedule. Events — whether scheduled or unscheduled — can add deadlines that we weren’t anticipating a month or so ago.
That doesn’t even get into the financing of the season.
We need to trust God’s promises. He won’t leave us but will provide for our needs. He may even use this time to grow our trust — and our faith.
- Use faith to increase our understanding of truth.
- Don’t be skeptical about what God can and did do.
- Trust in God’s guidance.
- Follow God’s advice.
- Don’t depend on the world.
- Seek God daily.
- Use trust as the fuel for our prayers as well as for faith.
- Be repentant.
- Be obedient.
- Confess to God.
- Walk in the Spirit.
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Father God. You have asked us to trust You. There is no one more trustworthy than You. Lord, we commit our lives to You. Amen.
What do you think?
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