WE CAN TRUST THE LORD
Isaiah 40:8 The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.
The word of God does stand forever! What God says is a reflection on him, and God is eternal and does not change. This is not to say that God can not change his mind as he did so many times in the Bible such as with the destruction of Nineveh. At least twice God wanted to destroy the Hebrews because of their rebellion from him, but he changed his mind when Moses intervened for them.
What we need to remember it is God’s nature or characteristics that are unchanging. God does not lie, because he does not need to or want to. God is sovereign in himself, and doesn’t need anyone or their approval. He has nothing to gain or lose by lying. What we need to remember is that he is always true to his nature and character. It is not up to us to police or make sure that God always stays on the up and up. Even if he didn’t what could we do about it? Nothing! God is God and the only thing for us to do is simply trust him and what he says.
The interpretation of God’s word often gets more Christians in trouble than anything else. Most often we try to make God’s word - God, say the things that we want him to say. It is unrealistic and we will end in frustration, disappointment and have resentment on our part. God is unrelenting in the aspect that his creation (us) will not be manipulating him or intimidating him in any way no matter how much we may threaten, bargain or pout. So many times God’s children act like not only little children, but babies. When God doesn’t answer our prayers right away or the way we want we throw a tantrum, and tell him that he doesn’t love us. Just yesterday I was reading about King Hezekiah and the tantrum he threw when he found out that he was going to die. He turned his face toward the wall and wept bitterly. He was not just upset, scared, worried for his loved ones. Hezekiah was bitter. He was mad that God was going to let him die. He had a boil that must have had infected his blood system, and was about to take his life. He even confronted God with the aspect that he had walked faithfully before him with wholehearted devotion and did what was good in his sight. He was basically telling God that God was not playing fair, and he was getting ripped offed. In Hezekiah’s thinking God needed to stand up to his end of the relationship and heal he. Well God did hear him and Hezekiah didn’t get to go to the place of the righteous dead where he would be with Abraham and the other great and faithful people that loved and obeyed the Lord. For fifteen more years he lived on earth to experience all that goes along with this life good and bad, and then he died anyway. We all die anyway, unless we get raptured up as Enoch, Elijah and the Christians during the end of time. The sad thing for Hezekiah was that during these fifteen years he had a son that would become one of the most shameful and evil kings of the Southern Kingdom. Even as I read this chapter on Hezekiah I wondered if he regretted living those extra years to have such a disappointing, shameful, evil son. Hezekiah and we need to remember that God always does what is best for us even if he says no to our prayer request!
Another example is that of Mary and Martha. When their brother Lazarus was dying they called for Jesus to come and heal him. When Jesus let their brother die, they were very angry with Jesus. Mary was so angry and disappointed in Jesus that she didn’t even want to go see him when he first arrived. When they both arrived to see Jesus they both lectured him on not coming right away to save Lazarus’ life. Soon they saw that Jesus did care for Lazarus and them by bringing Lazarus back to life.
So many times the creation is telling the creator what he needs to do. What makes us think that God owes us anything or we know what is better than God? No, it is not wrong to ask God freely for things in our life. Psalm 37:4 even tells us that God wants to give us our heart’s desires if we only put him first in our life. Like any good parent God wants to bless his children and make them happy, but he also doesn’t want to give sharp scissors to a little child either! Some things in our life are not good for us. In these cases God will always love us so much as to do what is best for us. Now sometimes Christians can be so insistent that Satan and the powers of darkness will give it to us making us think it was God, so we will get upset with God. This is why we must always pray with the attitude that while we may want a particular thing , we always want God to do what is right. Because of this I personally have found I have peace as well as confidence in all my prayers to the Lord. If my prayer is answered the way is I asked for it to be done, well Praise the Lord! If it is not, then Praise the Lord because he has something better in mind. This is not a cop out as the world may accuse me of, but rather a correct perfect way to pray knowing that my Almighty God loves me so much. He will risk having me no longer love him, rather than do something that is not good for me. I believe God is confident in my love for him. I certainly pray my trust will always reflect my love for him.
Often Christians will take God’s word and assume that everything is universal when in reality many things that God says in his word is temporal or for a particular person or thing. We can not expect God to react to every situation or thing the exact same way every time. As I have already pointed out that God will always do what is best. What may be great of one person or situation may not be for another. Often we see Christians respond to this by picking verses here and there to suit their need. They quickly take things out of context never thinking that they have only made a pretext that means nothing to God and will only be disappointment to us. Sometimes Christians try to force God into doing something by saying it in Jesus’ name or for his glory. When we do this God knows the intent of our heart, and it has to hurt him very much. We don’t like people trying to manipulate us! It only shows our lack of trust for God and disrespect for Jesus!
Speaking of Jesus’ name, John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This Word as we read on is Jesus! Jesus is eternally God as the Heavenly Father, and the Holy Spirit. He is not only eternal, but his is as unchanging as the Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit. We can trust in Jesus and all that he says. We still need to remember that we must treat him as we must the rest of the Godhead. We must look to see if what he has said is temporal or universal, and remember that we must never try to manipulate him. We must always trust him to do what is best for us, and that he puts our relationship with him before temporal needs. He doesn’t want to be treated as a sugar daddy or unlimited treasure chest without appreciation.
Trusting in God and what he says is not really very hard if we put ourself in the background and God in the foreground. When we keep our eyes on God’s nature and love for us and not our problem or situation we can keep a correct perspective on the entire situation. When we do this, we can have the confidence and assurance in God and his word.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for who you are. Because of who you are we trust you completely. When we become frustrated or disappointed please remember that you are dealing with little children no matter how old we may appear. We love you Lord, and ask this in Jesus name. The name of our Lord, Savior and husband.
