Trusting in something we can’t see.
This is something the world views as crazy.
But to the follower of Jesus Christ, it should be a very normal everyday thing.
God has been taking me through a process of trusting in Him when I cannot see what the outcome of a situation will be. The verse He keeps bringing to my attention is Proverbs 3:5-6.
“Trust in the Lord with All your Heart and lean not on your own understanding. In ALL your ways acknowledge Him and He WILL direct your paths“
What I have learned is that in order to put a greater level of trust in someone, there needs to be relationship. The more you spend time with someone, you see how they live their life. You find out if they are honest and true to their word or if they lie and can’t keep secrets. You find out if they are always late and rarely show up or are early and show up always.
The more time I spend with Jesus and read the Bible, I get to understand His character and motives. If I view God as a distant God that doesn’t keep secrets, I naturally won’t trust Him when He gives me a promise. But if I know God to be a very close loving Father who cannot even lie and loves to uphold truth, then it is easier to trust that what He says will come to pass.
God is the Alpha and Omega. The Beginning and the End. He see’s all of eternity. Our past, present and future. He knows what we are going to do before we even do it. So when He speaks a promise about something that will happen in the future, our response should be to trust Him and believe that what God spoke will happen, because He already saw it in the future. (Mind blowing really!)
But unfortunately this is too often not our first response. We worry so much as human beings. We see things in the natural and only see the impossible. But this is not how we were created to live. We are to walk according to the Spirit (Gal. 5). The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in us. He opens our eyes to see past the natural and trust in the things we cannot see. To trust in the invisible. Hebrews 11:1 says,
“Now Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (NIV)
We all have some amount of faith. We believe Jesus dies and rose again to save us from our sins. We believe we get to spend an eternity in Heaven with Jesus and that it is going to be awesome. But when God tells us to not worry about what we are going to wear or what we will eat, we have a hard time believing Him. Interesting eh? Why is it that we can trust God in big areas that the “world” says we are crazy for believing, but when a small problem comes up, we have trouble trusting Him?
I don’t get and I maybe never will. But I want to be able to “trust in the Lord“ with ALL my heart in my short time on earth. One way He tells us to do this is in the same verse. “lean not on your own understanding“. I too often lean on my own understanding of how “things work”. I tell myself, “I’ve seen God do it this way before, so He will probably do it again”. I put myself in a box of how I “know God works“. But God tells us to not lean on our own understanding and to trust in Him. Even when what He is telling us to do seems crazy.
So in my situation of raising support for the World Race, I can put my trust in humans to provide for me. I can put my trust in myself to raise the funds needed. Or I can trust in God with all my heart. When I trust in God with all my heart, I won’t rely on humans to help me because there is no room left. God will take up any room in my heart that I trust humans with and fill it with Himself.
Now it may sound like I am about to tell people to not give financially. This is not my point. God loves to use His children to send out missionaries. He loves when His children give money that they are stewards of to advance His Kingdom. But what I am getting across (hopefully) is “who” we put our trust in. I don’t want to put any trust in humans without first putting ALL my trust in Jesus.
So for the World Race God needs to meet certain deadlines in order for me to leave in January. The deadlines are as follows…
FINANCIAL DEADLINES
$3,500– Due Sep/26/2014
$7,500– Due Dec/19/2014
$11,000– Due April/01/2015 (End of 3 months on the field)
$16,242.60–Due JULY/01/2015
TOTAL ($15,500+ insurance $742.60 ) (End of 6 months on the field)
The first deadline is in less than 3 weeks. Which the cheques take 2 weeks to process. So they need to be put into the mail by Friday, September 12.
So as you can see now, all what I have been learning about trusting in God is needing to be put into practice. In my natural eyes, I can look at the situation and wonder, “Is God really going to provide for me?” But with my Spiritual eyes, I am saying, “I know God is going to provide. He always has and always will. I don’t know how yet, but I know HE WILL”.
So dear friend and family member, I don’t trust in you to provide for me, But I do trust in God. I am asking for you to play apart in this mission. I am asking you to give financially and soon. But whether you do or not, God will provide. He is Jehovah Jirah, which means “The LORD will provide”.
So I challenge you with the Words of Paul in 2 Cor. 9:6. Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
Let God’s Kingdom come and His will be done here on earth as it is in Heaven!
Your brother in Christ,
Jordan Tarant
