Trust

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your hearts, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (NKJV).

Before coming to Christ, we would wake up each day with all our previous failures, after putting them aside for the night. The next morning we would quietly hang each disappointment around our neck like a tree trunk. And, even though the old failures are already heavy enough, we would start each day with the full expectation of adding more weight as we go. We would struggle along with only the trust in the likelihood of imperfection, with no relief in sight.

Do you remember that feeling? How much it hurt! Carrying around all our failures is like carrying around a rattlesnake. We can’t make a move because of the fear of another mistake and more pain. There’s no expected transformation when you’re paralyzed with fear. And yet, we never stopped trying. The world demands that we go on, clumsy and dusty as ever. There is no time to stop and reflect on life. There is so much that we have to do and ample opportunity to fail…

Finally, each of us, at different times, in different ways discovered the grace of God through Jesus Christ. We were reborn in Him, a new creature and yet our quest for perfection continues, desperate to succeed, desperate to act godly, desperate to love enough. And all we can see is the list with no check marks, no evidence that we’ve accomplished anything.

We let all of these failures that we focus on every day make it seem that we are further from God. It seems so backward; but until we choose to reclaim the peace and joy and redemption that only His amazing grace gives, we miss the point of redemption completely.

God is not holding our failures, our sins against us. We have been redeemed from the curse of the law. Despite any failure, we can rest in God’s grace.

Making the commitment to trust God every day is hard, isn’t it? It’s especially hard when we think we have any part in determining His love for us. He knows our imperfections, He knows our hidden sin, He knows our heart and as unbelievable it may seem, He sent His Son for our sake and because He first loved us, we can rest in His grace. I love this quote I read in the latest letter from Key Life Network from Jack Miller, now deceased, a former professor at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. He said “The Bible can be summed up in two sentences…1) Cheer up, you’re a lot worse than you think you are. 2) Cheer up, God’s grace is a lot bigger than you think it is.”

Awesome!