A couple of preteen boys are swimming in a creek with their father. Okay, swimming is an overstatement. They are basically playing in small puddles, trying to catch crawdads, and looking for cool looking rocks. Their father sits calmly in a deeper puddle nearby. Suddenly, with obvious panic, the father tells the boys, “We have to leave right now!”
They know he isn’t angry with them. It doesn’t seem like there is a snake. No danger seems to be lurking around the corner. It’s all confusing. The father, though, has sprang out of his watery basin and moved onto safer terrain. The boys are still confused, not knowing why dad is so worked up. In this moment they have a choice — move up to the bank with their dad even if they don’t understand, or stay in the hole and make him pull them out of there.
Can they trust their dad even if they don’t understand why they need to stop playing and run for protection?
Many Christians ask the same question of God. Because His ways are not our ways, and because we are finite and fallen creatures, it is not surprising that we will have several instances in our lives when we are like those baffled kids in the creek adventure.
You wouldn’t think it would be difficult to trust an all-knowing and all-loving Being, but here we are. We have a tendency to trust only the things we can see. Our bodies work in beautiful unison to keep us alive. Part of our body’s job — including things like our emotions — is to protect us from our own ignorance.
A few years ago, we took our kids to one of those big adventure places where you get strapped into a harness and climb high rocks. On one particular obstacle you scale a 3-4 story wall. When you get to the top you’re supposed to lean back and then jump. I got to the top and found it really difficult to make that plunge. I’d never done it before, and my body was telling me that this was not a good idea.
Trusting God, for sinful people, can be just as difficult. Because of our rebellion our being is pitted against God. We’re not prone to trust Him, though He is trustworthy. Sin has distorted us in such a way that we are susceptible to placing our faith in shaky things and reject that which is stable. I think Proverbs 19:3 plays a role here: "A person's own foolishness leads him astray, yet his heart rages against the Lord." Our foolishness leads us into pain, and then we blame God for the unwelcome experience.
At times we also have a difficulty trusting God because we know that He has different values than we do. There is a humorous story involving an elderly lady having her whole life savings swindled from her after some scam. Her loss isn’t the humorous part. What is funny is her response when a person from the Better Business Bureau asked why she didn’t call them at first. “Well, I knew you’d talk me out of it!”
There are some things which we do not entrust to God because we know He doesn’t place the same value on them that we do. His wisdom is not our wisdom, which means that our valuing system is different. And if we really want to hold onto an idol, we aren’t going to be energetic about entrusting it to one in the business of casting down idols.
All of these reasons, and many more, make it difficult to trust God. He does things that we don’t understand and calls us to do things that go against our fallen inclinations. Trust can be difficult. But we can, and must trust God.
There is one factor which will determine if our boys in the creek move from the water to the hill. Does their father have a record of trustworthiness?
Let’s go back to our lads in the lagoon. Imagine that the father is a bit of a prankster. He has a history of pretending to get all worked up, having the kids join into his excitement, and then when they ask for an explanation, he teases them for believing him. It’s the old “little boy who cried wolf,” but in our instance it’s “foolish father who cries crisis.” Such a pattern will leave these boys bent towards not trusting their father. They’ll chalk it up to another joke.
How different is our story if the father never acts this way? If he has proven himself to be trustworthy over and over again, and not one to get riled up over something trivial. How do you think the boys will respond? They will likely, without needing to understand why, jump out of the creek and onto the bank. It doesn’t require understanding to trust someone that you have an experience of trusting.
God is the same way. If we have a history of finding Him trustworthy, we will be more inclined to trust Him with an uncertain future. There are areas of my life where I have witnessed God come through, over and over and over again. I don’t have as difficult of a time trusting God when I hear Him saying, “Just trust me.”
At times darkness distorts our hearts and our memories. Though we could give 10,000 reasons for our heart to sing, we can get rather dull and draw a blank when it comes to reciting His blessings in our lives. In those moments, when God calls us to trust what we don’t see, it can feel nearly impossible. When these seasons come upon us, we can drop anchor in how we’ve seen God work in the life of other people. If a bridge holds the weight of a sumo-wrestler, I can be pretty confident it will hold my weight. (Unless he loosened all the boards, my cynical mind retorts).
If we cannot trust His work in our life, or see His work in the life of others, perhaps we can find some solace in God’s character. Charles Spurgeon once said, “God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.” There will be times in our life when God simply doesn’t make sense. There will be questions that are unanswered. We will die with pieces of our hearts broken and places in our souls with a big question mark. But there is a mountain full of God’s faithfulness to us, and an eternity worth of expressions of His good character.
If you’re still having trouble with trust, spend some time with Jesus.
If you want to know God’s heart, look at Jesus. If you are struggling with trust, I would encourage you to do something. Go into it with an open mind and open heart. Read through the gospels – as slowly as you need to for a cursory understanding, but quick enough that it feels like a story. Table every other question and observation you might have and simply look for one thing; is this guy trustworthy? Knowing what I know from the gospel accounts, would I trust Jesus with my life? Would I entrust my children to His care?
I think what you will find is someone who is at times confusing. You’ll scratch your head at some of His actions. His responses might baffle you at times. But the overall thrust of His life is that He is one that we can entrust every bit of our life to. He never lets the disciples down. He is always there to lift up the hurting and the vulnerable. He is healing. He is trustworthy to the core. And He is God. If you want to know what the Father looks like, look no further than the Son.
You don’t need to know all of the details, or even to understand much, to know that you can trust the Father. Can we trust God if we don’t fully understand Him? You better hope so, because we will never fully understand Him. But someday we will see Him as He is. And in that moment, all of our questions will fade. Even if our understanding still has gaps, we’ll know that He is entirely trustworthy and always has been.
Oh, about those kids in the creek. It’s a story I was told several times as a child. My dad and uncle were the two boys playing in the puddles. What my grandpa heard was the sound of rushing water coming in the distance. Unlike them, he had the experience of knowing how quickly a flood can come upon you. Did you know that a creek that is only 6 inches deep can swell to a 10-foot-deep raging river of death in less than an hour? And that is close to what happened here. Within moments, the place where they were playing was washed out.
My grandfather was one of the most trustworthy people I ever knew. On that day, they didn’t understand why he was in such a panic, but they immediately bolted up and followed him out of the creek. They could trust him, even if they didn’t understand him. And yes, if they’d have been foolish and kept playing, my grandpa would have gone down and saved my dad and uncle, if he was able. God is the same — though perfectly able. Yet, why would we not trust Him?
Mike Leake is husband to Nikki and father to Isaiah and Hannah. He is also the lead pastor at Calvary of Neosho, MO. Mike is the author of Torn to Heal and Jesus Is All You Need. His writing home is http://mikeleake.net and you can connect with him on Twitter @mikeleake. Mike has a new writing project at Proverbs4Today.
He is a cross pendant.
He is engraved with a unique Number.
He will mail it out from Jerusalem.
He will be sent to your Side.
Emmanuel
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