I sympathize with those who find it difficult to trust God in adversity. I've been there often enough myself to know something of the distress, despair, and darkness that fills our souls when we wonder if God truly cares about our plight. I have spent a good portion of my adult life encouraging people to pursue holiness, to obey God. Yet, I acknowledge it often seems more difficult to trust God than to obey Him.
God's moral will given to us in the Bible is rational and reasonable; the circumstances in which we must trust God often irrational and inexplicable. God's law is readily recognized to be good for us, even when we don't want to obey it; the circumstances of our lives frequently appear dreadful and grim, perhaps even calamitous and tragic. Obeying God is worked out within well-defined boundaries of God's revealed will' trusting God is worked out in an arena that has no boundaries, where we're always coping with the unknown.
Yet it is just as important to trust God as it is to obey Him. When we disobey God we defy His authority and despise His holiness. But when we fail to trust God we doubt His sovereignty and question His goodness. In both cases we cast aspersions upon His majesty and His character. God views our distrust of Him as seriously as He views our disobedience.
When the people of Israel were hungry, "they spoke against God, saying, 'Can God spread a table in the wilderness?...Can he also give bread of provide meat for his people?'" The next two verses tell us, "When the LORD heard, he was full of wrath...because they did not believe in God and did not trust his saving power" (Psalm 78:19-22, ESV).
In order to trust God, we must always view our adverse circumstances through the eyes of faith, not of sense.
- Trusting God by Jerry Bridges
No comments:
Post a Comment