Trusting the Father
It’s a game that involves a three year old running to her dad, jumping, and him catching her. Jovie and David invented this game and Jovie will stand in the furthest part of our kitchen, while David sits on the floor of our living room, approximately 35-40 feet away. Jovie races across the kitchen, dining room and into the living room as fast as her 3 year old legs will take her, and literally jumps into David’s arms. They both laugh like crazy, enjoying the game.
As you can imagine, David does everything in his power to catch her securely and would, under no conditions, allow her to miss or be hurt in any way. Also, and this is critical, Jovie trusts David completely, therefore she gives the game her best effort. They played this game recently at our house and it hit me…Jovie trusts David absolutely. There is not one moment of doubt in her mind.
Then I thought, is it possible for us to trust God absolutely?
Let’s take a look at Proverbs 3:5-6. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” (NIV) The focus of this verse seems to be “with all your heart.” Does this speak to absolute trust? Yes, I think so; completely, and in all things.
We are then told to not depend solely on our own understanding. Our understanding is limited, no doubt about that; so, why not depend on the one whose understanding is not limited? Why not trust God absolutely? What is the result of all of this? If we acknowledge him in everything, he will make sure our paths are straight. Does that mean easy? No, obviously not. It means our vision will be clear, and our journey through this life and into the next will be also.
The fact is, we come up short in the area of trust, don’t we. Part of this is when our expectations are not met immediately. We are impatient (present company included) and expect God to act right away on something. When he doesn’t, our trust fades a bit. We don't think he will do anything; not soon enough anyway.
God exists in a different time situation than we do. To try to understand that is impossible, of course. Some have said that he can experience the past, present and future all together; in a kind of eternal present. Like I said, that is far beyond our understanding.
Ok, so what do we do since God seems to insist on our trust and it is not easy? Jesus chided those around him for their lack of faith. In Matthew 8, he rebuked the disciples on the boat when the sea acted up. “Why are you so afraid?” was his direct question. They had seen his miracles already, so what was the problem? In Matthew 17 he spoke of the “faith of a grain of mustard seed.” He told them that if their faith were like that, they could move mountains; probably referring to situations in our lives that seem impossible.
We are finite. We are limited. We are VERY human. We fail often. Our faith and trust wanes from time to time. Is absolute trust possible all the time? Probably not. What we need to do is practice trusting God everyday in everything. If we do, we might be surprised to see how those mountains don’t seem to be so big after all.
We can run to him and be 100% assured he will catch us.
Thanks be to God.
