Earned Trust

Loving someone is one thing, trusting someone is another. I love my wife, as well as trust her; however the later clearly took more time than the former. Being hurt in relationships causes scars that make trust difficult, but not impossible. Through our dating, engagement, and even earlier years of marriage, I learned to trust my wife my with whole heart; far more difficult than loving her.

Similarly, it's interesting to see the trust journey of some of the earlier biblical characters with God, like Jacob. Having a flawed, but godly father in Isaac, one may think that trust may have been built in the strength of their family (although that was a bit of a mess too!). Regardless, Jacob needed to have his own journey with the Lord, as we all do.

I pause and say that we don't need to place conditions for trusting the Lord. We Trust Him because He is Trustworthy. Yet He knows our fallen human nature, and hurt we have experienced, and stays with us on the journey regardless of how we may doubt Him.

Jacob, as he began to travel to Haran, had a quite amazing dream. Yet even with his knowledge of God, guidance from his father, and own experiences thus far in his life, he still uttered the words "If God will ... then the LORD shall be my God". (Genesis 28:20-21)

I think he loved God. Yet he trusted God ... conditionally.

It got me thinking about my own journey, as Scripture always should. How many times have I waited on God to reveal Himself before I made a motion of trust? Don't get me wrong, there are times when we are called to wait on Him. Clearly though, I know there have been times when I perhaps tested God. Sometimes it came out like this:

"If God will just make this sin less tempting, then perhaps I won't be sinning so much. So I'll just keep on praying that He makes it less tempting."

Why? So sacrifice won't be needed, Matt? So I don't need to lean on trusting Him first?

Trust is something earned indeed. There will never be perfect trust in a human however, as no matter how good willed someone may be, things like pride always like to find a way of sneaking in from time to time. However, we do have Someone we can trust, and trust completely and perfectly. He already has earned that trust ... in many ways.

The tomb is empty ... may I continue to die to self, and rise with Christ

His Path, Daily. And what a beautiful, peaceful, joyful path it is ...

His,
~Matthew

My Prayer/Action: Where in my life am I not trusting God? What will I do about it?