In God We Trust

It is better to trust in the Lord
than to put confidence in man.
Psalm 118:8

There are always those in these days who like to mess around with the basic principles of our country. There also those who are un-American, who want to tear down those spiritual basics that have come to be so meaningful for all of us. “In God We Trust,” the motto of our country has recently come under fire. What bothers me about this is that as much as we Christians fuss about folks wanting to do away with this precious motto, we Christians have the privilege of placing our trust in our wonderful, loving Father and often continue relying on our own resources.

Looking up the word “trust,” I find that it is the belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest and effective. It is also the reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety of a person or thing. These are mere definitions of what trust is and all of it, we find in Jesus Christ and more. There isn't a thing we face but what we can dump it in Jesus' lap. We can trust Him with any care or problem we face. He is ever present and we can rely on His ability to work on our behalf.

We've all seen it or we have done it ourselves. I think dads especially like doing it while doting moms look on. The first time I saw it done was my own dad with my little sister Kay. He put Kay standing on the edge of our front porch when she was about 2 years old. He stood below at ground level. Our porch was rather highd and Daddy extended his arms upward to Kay and encouraged her to jump. It was obvious that Kay had never done this before. Mother and I both called out encouraging words to her to jump. I had done this any number of times and knew that Daddy never dropped me. After a few minutes, Kay jumped into Daddy's arms with her banana curls bobbing in the air. She did it a second time, still reluctant but more trusting than the first time. With practice not just on that day but other days, she could jump off of that porch into Daddy's arms with abandon.

I have seen dads do this and at times would teasingly pretend to drop the child with a deep catch and unbeknown to that dad, a trust was broken. All it took was one jump like that that broke a trust that was hard to retrieve.

In recent days, I've gone through some difficult things in my life. When it rains, it pours and that's the way it's been for me. I'm afraid for a time, I did what I've done before in trying to work things out for myself. Trusting God in the hard times just wasn't registering with me. I wish I could be a spiritual giant who immediately puts my trust where it ought to be but I often fail. The Lord seems to let me do my struggling and then He so very gently steps in with His sweet assurance that I can rely, and yes, trust Him to sustain me and work on my behalf.

I know that the Lord is faithful to His Word and because of that, He is more than trustworthy. Just want to share some things from God's Word that will encourage us. Some of these are very familiar, but all should encourage us to place our trust in Jesus with no hesitancy.

Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust,
and not be afraid: for the Lord JEHOVAH
is my strength and my song; He also
is become my salvation.
Isaiah 12:2

For therefore we both labour and
suffer reproach, because we trust
in the living God, who is the
Saviour of all men, specially
of those that believe
I Timothy 4:10

Then, of course, is the old but good verses from Proverbs 3:5,6:

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart;
and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him,
and he shall direct thy paths.

I have decided that in my own life, I must make the decision to trust. In the course of life, I have had people who “dropped” me, destroying whatever trust I had at the time. We've all experienced times where people have disappointed and let us down. Trust under those circumstances was seemingly destroyed. However, Jesus has never let us down...He's never dropped us when we have jumped into His loving arms. I want my first reaction in times of difficulty to trust in the Lord Jesus. I invite you to join me in this wonderful venture of trust.

Dear Father...I praise You for being worthy of my trust in every way. Increase my faith in the fact that You can solve any problem I face. I love You...in Jesus' precious name...Amen