Trust
Hello friends. I've been out of commission for the past week or so due to the fact that I was on vacation. The last week has been, you know I hate to use cliches but what the heck, the worst of times and the best of times. Maybe someday I'll blog about it but not today.
Today is about trust. Trust in God to be more specific. I've been sort of chatting back and forth with my pal at Into The Depths about it, and I must say, it's been a difficult thing to think about. How do you begin to fathom trusting in an unseen God, the invisible Ruler of the Universe, when you've been betrayed by almost every authority figure in your life? All of them visible, by the way.
It's a touchy subject, if you haven't been able to guess that already.
In thinking it over, I began to almost despair of finding a true reason to trust God. I mean, as a child, my grandparents took me to church as often as they could. What the preacher talked about planted a seed in my heart and I have always just taken it for granted that there is a God. Of that I have no doubt. But why trust Him? Most of the experiences in my childhood clearly spoke to the contrary. To trust someone meant getting hurt, and I learned early on that survival meant trusting in myself alone.
But after a while, surviving on my own became overwhelming. The pain of some of my experiences was too great to bear and it almost killed me. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I had to either trust someone, or rather SomeOne, and risk being destroyed, or keep all to myself and let it destroy me anyway. Fortunately, I chose God.
Still, that's just one way of looking at it. It's kind of a skewed way of looking at it if I do say so myself. My reason for trusting God in the beginning shouldn't have come because I felt I had no other choice. I should have made a more informed decision. I could have tried reading my Bible and then making up my mind, but I just decided to go for it based on other people's testimony. Not that I'm complaining, but I could have saved myself years of torment if I had taken the time to study God by His description of Himself, rather than other people's. But I digress.
So, other than the "Do Or Die" method, why should I trust God? What evidence is there of His trustworthiness? Maybe the question should be, why shouldn't I trust God?
What I'm saying is, all my reasons for distrusting God have been based on the actions of some depraved human beings. But is that fair to God? I mean, isn't it sort of laughable to try to compare God to humans? Or vice versa? We know better than to compare the power of a flashlight to the power of the sun don't we? Isn't that sort of the same thing?
In other words, if God isn't human, then why do we judge Him according to human standards? Human beings are weak and can't be trusted. History has shown us that much over and over again. So, if we can't judge God according to human standards (and really we shouldn't be judging Him at all, but that's what we do) then how do we know He is trustworthy? How do we know He is good?
By looking at what God has done, not what humans have done. God created the earth and all the fascinating creatures that dwell in it. He created the heavens and the stars, the sun and moon. Have you ever watched the Discovery channel? Have you seen just how marvelously made our bodies are??? Have you seen the news story of the man who has been in a coma for 20 years and while he was out, his brain re-wired itself? Now he's waking up and talking!!! After 20 years! What a masterpiece of creation! What a work of genius! Our bodies are amazing.
Someone somewhere once said that no mean woman could ever be a good cook, because it takes a generous heart to prepare a good meal for a family. If that's true, if creating a good meal for your family is a work of love, then how much more is it to create a something as wonderful as a man or woman? God is not sadistic, He's not mean, He's not hateful. If He was, it would be impossible for Him to create the beauty that we take for granted every day.
God does not need me to defend Him, and that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to challenge anyone who reads this to look at God from a different perspective. Jesus told the Pharisees (and I'm paraphrasing here), "Hey look, if you can't believe me based on what I'm telling you, at least look at what I've done...look at the miracles I've done, and believe Me based on that."
Take a look around you...look at what God has done...and believe.
Today is about trust. Trust in God to be more specific. I've been sort of chatting back and forth with my pal at Into The Depths about it, and I must say, it's been a difficult thing to think about. How do you begin to fathom trusting in an unseen God, the invisible Ruler of the Universe, when you've been betrayed by almost every authority figure in your life? All of them visible, by the way.
It's a touchy subject, if you haven't been able to guess that already.
In thinking it over, I began to almost despair of finding a true reason to trust God. I mean, as a child, my grandparents took me to church as often as they could. What the preacher talked about planted a seed in my heart and I have always just taken it for granted that there is a God. Of that I have no doubt. But why trust Him? Most of the experiences in my childhood clearly spoke to the contrary. To trust someone meant getting hurt, and I learned early on that survival meant trusting in myself alone.
But after a while, surviving on my own became overwhelming. The pain of some of my experiences was too great to bear and it almost killed me. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I had to either trust someone, or rather SomeOne, and risk being destroyed, or keep all to myself and let it destroy me anyway. Fortunately, I chose God.
Still, that's just one way of looking at it. It's kind of a skewed way of looking at it if I do say so myself. My reason for trusting God in the beginning shouldn't have come because I felt I had no other choice. I should have made a more informed decision. I could have tried reading my Bible and then making up my mind, but I just decided to go for it based on other people's testimony. Not that I'm complaining, but I could have saved myself years of torment if I had taken the time to study God by His description of Himself, rather than other people's. But I digress.
So, other than the "Do Or Die" method, why should I trust God? What evidence is there of His trustworthiness? Maybe the question should be, why shouldn't I trust God?
What I'm saying is, all my reasons for distrusting God have been based on the actions of some depraved human beings. But is that fair to God? I mean, isn't it sort of laughable to try to compare God to humans? Or vice versa? We know better than to compare the power of a flashlight to the power of the sun don't we? Isn't that sort of the same thing?
In other words, if God isn't human, then why do we judge Him according to human standards? Human beings are weak and can't be trusted. History has shown us that much over and over again. So, if we can't judge God according to human standards (and really we shouldn't be judging Him at all, but that's what we do) then how do we know He is trustworthy? How do we know He is good?
By looking at what God has done, not what humans have done. God created the earth and all the fascinating creatures that dwell in it. He created the heavens and the stars, the sun and moon. Have you ever watched the Discovery channel? Have you seen just how marvelously made our bodies are??? Have you seen the news story of the man who has been in a coma for 20 years and while he was out, his brain re-wired itself? Now he's waking up and talking!!! After 20 years! What a masterpiece of creation! What a work of genius! Our bodies are amazing.
Someone somewhere once said that no mean woman could ever be a good cook, because it takes a generous heart to prepare a good meal for a family. If that's true, if creating a good meal for your family is a work of love, then how much more is it to create a something as wonderful as a man or woman? God is not sadistic, He's not mean, He's not hateful. If He was, it would be impossible for Him to create the beauty that we take for granted every day.
God does not need me to defend Him, and that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to challenge anyone who reads this to look at God from a different perspective. Jesus told the Pharisees (and I'm paraphrasing here), "Hey look, if you can't believe me based on what I'm telling you, at least look at what I've done...look at the miracles I've done, and believe Me based on that."
Take a look around you...look at what God has done...and believe.
Comments
Sorry I have taken so long. I read your post when you first put it up, I just haven't been sure how to respond. I think it is beautiful that you have come to that place in your life where you can rest in the goodness of God. I haven't. To me it sounds so oversimplified. I know that is the point. Being able to get to the point that you can trust in that simplicity as we are called to do is where we all are supposed to be headed. I am just stuck in the middle of the questioning and misunderstanding. I am learning more though, and perhaps, after a lot of work, I might actually get there too.
But when there is a question on my heart, I remember what He's done in my life and it helps me to trust Him. I now know that what I "feel" and what I see are not always the same.