Throughout the Bible we are exhorted again and again to trust in the Lord.
We are warned against trusting in princes, in riches, or in ourselves; for
all such trust is vain. Trusting in the Lord is represented as being safe,
as blessed, and as producing very desirable results. In it is our hope,
our strength, our safety, and our help.
But what does trust mean? It does not mean carelessness or indifference.
Just to let things go and say, “Oh, I guess it will come out all right,”
is not trusting. Just drifting heedlessly with the tide is not trust.
Neglect is not trust. Trust is something positive. It is a real something,
not a mere happen-so or maybe-so. It is a definite attitude of soul and
mind, a realization of our own need and of God’s sufficiency. It is the
reaching out and anchoring of ourselves in God.
The soul who really trusts is not driven about by every wind. The waves
beat against him as they beat against the anchored ship, but they can not
dash him upon the rocks; for he who trusts in God is strong, because he
has the strength of God.
Trust does not mean shutting our eyes to facts. There is no such thing as
“blind faith.” Trust looks at things as they are. It sees the dangers that
threaten, and assesses them at their true value. It sees the need, and
does not try to disguise it. It sees the difficulties, and does not
discount them. But seeing all this, it looks beyond and sees God, its
all-sufficient help. It sees him greater than the needs or the dangers or
the difficulties, and it does not shrink before them.
There is no fear in trust: the two are opposites. When we really fear, we
are not fully trusting. When we trust, fear gives way to assurance. Fear
is tormenting. How many there are who are constantly agitated by fear!
They fear the devil, trials, temptations, the wind, lightning, burglars,
and a thousand other things. Their days are haunted by fear of this thing
or that. Their peace is marred and their hearts are troubled. For all
this, trust is the cure. I do not mean to say that if you trust, nothing
will ever startle you or frighten you, or that you will never feel
physical fear in time of danger; but in such times trust will bring to us
a consciousness that the Lord knows and cares, and that his helping
presence is with us.
When John Wesley was crossing the Atlantic from England to America to
become a missionary to the Indians, the ship on which he was sailing
encountered a terrible storm. It seemed that those on board would be lost.
Many were much alarmed and were in deep distress. Wesley himself was one
of this number. In the midst of the storm his attention was attracted to
some Moravians who sat calm and undisturbed by the dangers about them.
Wesley greatly wondered at their untroubled appearance. He inquired why it
was. Their reply was that they were trusting in the Lord and that they had
in their souls the consciousness of his protecting presence and care. They
felt no fear because there was nothing threatening that a Christian had
need to fear. Mr. Wesley did not have such an experience, but what he
learned from those simple-hearted people caused him to seek a similar
experience.
There is no worry in trust. When we worry about anything, we have not
committed it to God. Trust takes away the anxiety. So many people use up a
large portion of their energy in worry. There is always something
troubling them. Their days and nights are full of anxiety. Worrying
becomes a fixed habit with them. Peace and calmness and assurance find but
little room in their lives. The cure for all this is trust. Trust brings
confidence. Trust whispers to our souls that there is no cause to worry.
It tells us that God holds the helm of our vessel. It bids us to be of
good courage, assuring us that God is our refuge and strength, that our
lives and all are in his hands, and that he will work out for us the
things that are best.
O soul, stop worrying, and trust. It is so much better. If you find
yourself worrying, stop right there. Take your eyes off the things that
trouble you; look up, and keep looking up till you see God and his
infinite care for you. Remember that when you worry you are not trusting,
and that when you trust you are not worrying. Worry depresses,
discourages, and weakens. It never helps us in any way. It is always a
hindrance to us. God wants to bring into our lives a peaceful calm like
that of a summer evening. He would have us without anxiety, as care-free
as the birds or the lilies. It is trust that brings us this experience.
Will you not learn to trust? “Casting all your care on him; for he careth
for you.”
There is no murmuring in trust. When all is trusted into God’s hands, it
brings to us a feeling of satisfaction concerning God’s dealings with us.
We can sing from our hearts, “God’s way is best; I will not murmur.” When
we trust, it is easy to praise. When we trust, the heart is full of
thankful appreciation. If you are inclined to murmur, it is because you do
not trust.
There is no feeling of bitterness when things do not go as we think they
should, if we are trusting. Bitterness comes from rebellion, and there is
no rebellion in trust. Trust can always say, “Not my will, but thine, be
done.”
In trust there is peace, the peace of God which passeth understanding.
There is calm in the soul of him who trusts. There is no doubt in trust,
for doubt is swallowed up in assurance, and assurance brings calmness and
peace.
Trusting brings confidence. It permits us to see God in his true
character. It causes us to realize the greatness and tenderness of his
love. It gives us a consciousness of his might, and through it we are
sheltered under his wings. By it our enemies lose their power; our
dangers, their terrors. We have a consciousness of safety, and that brings
rest. He has said, “Ye shall find rest unto your souls.” He who trusts
finds this soul-rest. God has not given us turmoil and trouble. He has
said, “In me ye shall have peace”; and again, “My peace I give unto you.”
Are not these precious promises? Are they true in your life? God means
that they shall be. Trust will make them real to you. They never can be
real until you learn to trust. Trust is the root that upholds and
nourishes the tree of Christian life. It is trust that causes it to
blossom and to bring forth fruit, and the more fully you trust, the
greater and richer and more profuse will be the fruits of your
righteousness.
I have told you something about trust, but I now wish to speak of some
other things that belong to trust. Trust implies submission. Very often
God fails to do things for us because we do not permit him to. We want to
plan for ourselves. We want things to be done in the way that seems best
to our finite wisdom.
Too many of us are like a woman whose husband recently said that they had
often gone driving together, that their horse would sometimes become
frightened, and that when it did, his wife would also become frightened
and would almost invariably seize the lines. Thus, he would have to manage
both his wife and the horse, making his task doubly difficult.
How many of us are just like that woman! When anything threatens, we
become alarmed and try to help God. We feel that it is not safe to leave
all in his hands and let him manage the circumstances. Our failure to
submit to him often complicates matters, and it is harder for him to
manage us than it is to manage the difficulties. To trust God means to
keep our hands off the lines. It means to let him have his way and do
things as he thinks best. It may be a hard lesson to learn, but you will
hinder God until you learn it.
“It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good
pleasure” (Phil. 2: 13). If your life is submitted to him, he will work in
you to will as well as to do. He will help do the planning as well as the
working out. He will aid you in the choosing, no less than in the doing.
If you can not submit to him thus, you have not reached the place where
you can trust. You must first learn to take your hands off yourself and
off circumstances; then trust will be natural and easy. How can you trust
him if you are not willing for him to do just as it pleases him? When you
have submitted all and he has his way fully with you, then the blessed
fruitfulness of trust will come into your life.
Trust also implies obedience. It means working with God to produce the
results. We can not sit down and fold our hands in idleness and expect
things to work themselves out. We must be workers, not shirkers. The man
who prays for a bountiful harvest but prepares no ground and plants no
seed will pray in vain. Faith and works must go together. We must permit
God to _direct_ our efforts and _command_ our efforts. We must be willing
to work when he wants us to work and in the way he wants us to work. Our
attempts to trust will amount to nothing if we are not willing to obey.
Right here is the secret of many people’s trouble; they are willing to
obey so long as the thing commanded is what they themselves would choose,
but when it is otherwise they are not so ready. Our obedience must be full
and willing, or we can not trust.
Trust implies patience. Even God can not work everything out immediately.
We are told that “ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the
will of God, ye might receive the promise” (Heb. 10: 36). So many times we
want the answers to our prayers right away. If they do not come thus, we
grow impatient and think God is not going to answer. There is no use
trying to hurry the Lord; we shall only hinder him if we do. He will not
work according to our plans, but according to his own. Time does not
matter so much to the eternal One as it does to us.
A brother once came to the altar in a meeting I helped to hold. In telling
his trouble he said, “When I want anything done, it has to be done in a
hurry.” Many other people can not be patient and wait. They want it _now_.
This is a great hindrance to their faith. The Psalmist says, “Rest in the
Lord, and wait patiently for him” (Psa. 37: 7). We are not only to wait
patiently for him to work out his purpose, but we are at the same time to
_rest_ in him. Some people can wait, but they can not rest at the same
time. They are uneasy and impatient; they want to hurry the Lord all the
time. The result usually is that their faith does not last very long. You
must add patience to your faith to make it effective. If you really trust,
you can be patient. It may not always be easy, but the more perfect your
trust, the easier it will be to be patient.
When Luther was summoned to meet the diet for trial on a charge of heresy,
his friends, fearing for his life, tried to persuade him not to go; but he
declared that he would go even if there were as many devils there as there
were tiles on the housetops. He trusted God, and that trust gave him an
unwavering courage. Three Hebrews trusted God, and the fiery furnace could
not even singe their garments. Daniel trusted God, and the hungry lions
could not touch him. Many thousands of others have trusted God with
similar results.
But trusting God is an active, positive thing. A passive submission or
surrender to circumstances is not trust. Trusting the Lord to save us
means to definitely rely on him to do it; to confidently expect that he
will do it. This leads directly to the confident trust that he does do it.
It brings the conscious assurance that it is an accomplished fact. We are
not left to doubt, to hope, or to guess; but we have a positive trust that
brings a positive result.
The same is true of sanctification. A positive faith brings a positive
experience; and so long as our faith remains positive, the experience
remains positive. It is only when faith begins to waver and doubts appear
that the experience becomes uncertain. If you will maintain a positive
faith, God will take care of your experience. Here lies the secret of
continuous victory. There may be conflicts, but faith is the foundation of
sure victory.
Trusting the Lord for healing means more than refusing to employ a
physician and to take drugs. People who do not trust God at all often
refuse to use drugs. They may at no time during their sickness really
exercise an act of faith for healing. They simply surrender to existing
conditions and hope that it will come out all right. In many such cases
nature will overcome the disease, and the person will recover. The “prayer
of faith,” however, is positive; it saves the sick; it brings healing.
Sometimes the sick person, because of the mental effects of his sickness,
is not able to exercise faith; but when he is able, faith will be an
active, positive thing with him, if the desired results are to follow.
It is safe to trust in the Lord. Isaiah says, “I will trust and not be
afraid” (Isa. 12: 2). That is the way God wants us to trust. He would have
us be confident in him. But sometimes we get to looking at circumstances,
and they loom up so threateningly before us that in spite of ourselves we
tremble and shrink before them. We believe that God will take care of us
and help us, but we can not quiet our fears. Our feelings are very much as
they are when we stand just outside the bars of the cage of a ferocious
wild beast. We know it can not reach us; we know we are safe from those
powerful teeth and claws; but still we can not help having a feeling that
we should not have were we somewhere else. When he comes to our side of
the cage, we shrink involuntarily, but still we trust the iron bars and do
not run away.
The Psalmist tells us what to do when we have such fears. “What time I am
afraid, I will trust in thee” (Psa. 56: 3). Still keep trusting. God will
not chide you for the fears you can not help, but only for those that come
from unbelief. Trust in God. It is the safest thing you have ever done;
and he will never fail you.