As I pray today for direction for this Ponderings blog, focusing this year on Holy Habitation with God, He leads me to a verse that has me thinking about “difficult things”. There are truths in scriptural teaching that are difficult to understand. Truly trusting God is one of those things that, if we are not careful in the way we trust, trust seemingly unmet will surely lead to felled faith. Thinking about that led to thought of other such passages where failure to understand fully will lead us to difficult things in our faith walk. Today we begin to look at some “Difficult Things” found in scripture, and how knowing the full truth regarding the issues covered affects our holy habitation with God.

Trust in the Lord:

Psalm 37:3 tells us to “trust in the Lord and do good.” We do our best good when we trust in the Lord and follow His lead, but what is trust? How are we to trust? What do we trust?

The scripture God used to lead me to our focus is Jeremiah 17:7, which says, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord.” That sounds repetitive, but it is not. To trust in the Lord is one side of the coin – which we will look at today; to have God as our trust, truly trusting Him, is the other side of the coin – covered in our next post. What’s the difference?

Let us take as an example my husband’s current health issue. It is such as threatens his life, so my heart grabs every promise of God for his healing. This is the side one of our trust coin. This trust comes from the heart that says one of two things:

Jesus, “…if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” ~ Mark 9:22.

This Mark passage tells us of a person who saw Jesus and His disciples performing miracles. A seed of hope rose up in him enough for him to bring his sick child to the disciples for healing. The disciples were just back from an awesome mission trip in which the Spirit of God worked many miracles through them, but now back at home, they find themselves unable to do the miraculous. Now, I have my opinion as to why they couldn’t, but we are looking at the faith that had the man reaching out to them. Tomorrow we will touch on their faith that failed, almost felling the faith of the seeker.

Jesus walks up on the scene and asks what is going on. The man replies that the disciples were unable to heal his daughter and seeks the mercy of Jesus, asking him to try. This man had faith enough to seek Jesus’ help, but he did not have faith enough to know beyond doubt that Jesus could accomplish the healing: thus, the “if You can, please do.” Jesus did not punish him for his lack of faith, though He did make the lack of trust clear with His reply in verse 23, “‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.” Then Jesus, seeing the seed forming in this man, fed it with faithfulness that met the need.

One begins to work out of a faith that fits this side of the trust coin when they see something in God that rises up hope and they begin to say, “If You can, will You?” God’s response to such a plea grows in us a deeper faith pouring from this side of the coin. Scripture depicts this increased depth of trust in an account just a few chapters before this, found in Mark 1:40.

“And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him, and saying, ‘If You are willing, You can make me clean.’”

This leper knew from all he saw and heard that Jesus can do whatever He is willing to do. His trust in Jesus’ ability was stronger than that of the man in chapter 8. He knew Jesus could heal. He was just not sure of His willingness to heal him. Thus, he reached out in hope to see if Jesus was willing. We see in verse 41, Jesus’ response:

“Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.’”

With regard to my husband, I know God can heal him, so I grab promises and lift my husband with hope that He is willing. God reveals He is willing as many of the promises reach out and grab me, reminding me that God is faithful and wants to heal him. Drawing me to trust God’s willingness to respond, I believe my God will lead us to healing; but what if He does not? This is where the flipside of the trust coin must work within us.

The problem with working solely in trust on this side of the trust-coin is the struggle that comes to faith’s trust when our desire goes unmet, or when met in ways that differ from what we want. Tomorrow we look at the other side of the coin, “Do I truly trust GOD?”