Learning to trust the faithful God

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. – Proverbs 3:5

When you do not really know God, you inevitably misunderstand His love and purpose for your life. You live with a caricature, often a distorted picture of God, one that is prevalent in a world that has forgotten who God is. The Bible says He is a loving Father, and Moses refers to what He promises to do as a “covenant of love.”

It’s very much the same thing that Paul wrote to the church in Rome some 1,400 years later. Remember the often-quoted verse found in Romans 8:28 that goes, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them”? What a contrast to the relationships we have with people – sometimes those with whom you do business, sometimes your friends, sometimes even the one who stood by your side at a marriage altar and pledged to be by your side until death should separate you.

Thomas Chisholm embodied the testimonies of generations of men and women who embraced this God who keeps covenants, writing, “Great is Thy faithfulness, O God, my Father! There is no shadow of turning with thee; Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not. As thou has been, thou forever wilt be.”

A missionary working in the New Hebrides crafted a chair –  something the natives had never seen in that culture. Seeing the craftsman sit in the chair, the local man gingerly and cautiously sat down. Then leaping to his feet he exclaimed, “This thing will support me!”

“Oh taste and see that the Lord is good,” invited the psalmist. Trust Him and then you, too, can say with Paul, “The one who calls you is faithful... He cannot deny Himself.”

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Used with permission from Guidelines International Ministries. To learn more about Guidelines and the ministry, send an e-mail to [email protected]. You may also visit www.guidelines.org.