Trust in the Lord
I want to share a great little clump of verses in Psalm 37, this week. David begins the Psalm by stating that there’s no need to worry about evil people, because they will wither away like grass, and then in verse 3 he writes: “Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:” (Psalm 37:3-5 NIV11)
Trust is Essential
Let’s talk about the phrase that bookends these three verses: trust in the Lord.
Trust is essential for any relationship to thrive. Without trust, things get bad pretty quickly. And many of us know that when trust has been lost, it is very difficult to get it back.
When it comes to our relationship with God, trust is also paramount. I suppose that being a Christian means that you have come to trust in God. You trust Him for salvation, of course, based on Christ’s work on the cross and not your own good works. But it goes much further that that – we can trust God as the perfectly reliable Master of the universe. Perhaps if we don’t trust Him in this way, we don’t know Him.
Trust or Hope?
EM Bounds, the great writer on prayer, says this in one of this books: “Trust is not a belief that God can bless or that he will bless, but that he does bless, here and now. Trust always operates in the present tense. Hope looks toward the future. Trust looks to the present. Hope expects. Trust possesses. Trust receives what prayer acquires. So what prayer needs at all times is abiding and abundant trust.”
That’s an important distinction. Hope looks forward and believes that God will sort things out in the future. But trust looks around at the present circumstances and trusts in God’s blessing now.
Are you full of trust at the moment? Able to look at your present situation and believe in God’s present blessing?
Come to Him in Trust
The gospels are full of stories of people coming to Jesus in trust. They looked to him to care for them in that moment. How about us – are we coming to Jesus day by day and trusting in His current blessing over us?
OR are we looking for assurance elsewhere – in our own wisdom, our own view of things, our own understanding?
In a world where evil people were having their own way, David wrote: trust in the Lord. In our world, where evil people still have their own way, his words still ring true.
Trust God. Even in the chaos, He is at work and His blessing stands.
