To Take Him at His WORD

Wait patiently for the LORD. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the LORD. Psalm 27:14 (New Living Translation)

I do not totally agree with the first line of the hymn ‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus…’

If you ever stood between Pharaoh’s pursuing army and a raging ocean; if you ever had to face Jericho’s walls and be told to just walk around them for six days without uttering any word; if you ever had to share your last meal with an unknown ‘Man of God' or ever was scourged for doing the right thing, then you would agree that trusting God in difficult times is anything but sweet.

Have you dealt with the realities of a debilitating or terminal illness while holding on to the tiniest thread of hope? Have you faced indebtedness and bankruptcy in the course of ‘doing ministry’? Has the tranquillity of your household been threatened by separation or divorce? Have you ever wondered where you went wrong in raising your children? Have church folks ever turned against you? Have friends maligned your reputation before?

Giant mountains, dark valleys, murky waters… and all you have is your faith in God and the hope that He would not let you down…. Nothing sweet here….

The three Hebrew boys were not smiling when they refused to ‘bow’. They had no smirk on their faces when they were seized by the king’s henchmen and dragged towards the flames. They saw the fire been stoked again and reheated seven times more. They told the king that even if their God did not deliver them, they still would not bow - acknowledging the possibility of burning to death while trusting God to rescue them. However, with beating hearts and quavering limbs, they chose to trust. How sweet was that?

What about Daniel - hurled into the lion’s den and tumbling into a torturous and violent death? With no precedence of God delivering anyone from those lions, he had to trust God still - not certainly certain if he would be spared or eaten alive by the voracious lions. That could not have been sweet!

I have had to trust God for daunting miracles in my personal life and I can say those times taught me patience, longsuffering, peace in a storm, etc, but they never caught me smiling. Of course I rejoiced after the battles were over, but seldom during the test. No soldier smiles in the heat of battle, even when they know the odds are in their favour. A war zone is what it is – you fight, armed with the truth you know and the weapons you own. You fight and you trust.

Trust is an element of truth, it shows that you believe the truth that God has said to you, in opposition to the reality in front of you; and that you expect to ‘see’ what you believe. Trust is your proof of Faith – ‘you believe therefore you say” (II Corinthians 4:13).

I will say of the LORD; “He is my Refuge and my Fortress; my God, in Him will I trust. (Psalm 91:2)

We match our spiritual truths with spiritual words (I Corinthians 2:13). We intentionally condition our words to match what we are believing for. We pull our words into the trail of our spiritual thoughts so they can align. Even that is not easy or sweet at all. It is tasking, intentional and all done in faith.

To anyone trusting God for anything daunting; a healing, a financial breakthrough, a mighty deliverance, a godly spouse, a child, … anything. Don’t be too hard on yourself for crying through your pain. You are not an infidel for expressing doubt and fear - as long as you do not let them linger. Jesus cried at Gethsemane but refused to give up on his mission, Paul acknowledged he had a thorn he wished he hadn’t and though it wasn’t taken away, he went on being ‘Paul’. David wept when he prayed for Bathsheba’s son to be spared, and when the boy died, he washed his face, put off his sackcloth and wore his royal robes again. Moses cried unto the Lord when he saw Pharaoh’s army advancing and God told him what next to do.

My point? It’s hardly ‘so sweet to trust in Jesus’ when you are actually ‘going through’;  but please keep trusting, keep living, keep believing, keep praying. Don’t die before your morning comes. It will be sweet at dawn – so sweet you would forget the pains of your ‘momentary affliction’ as you rise into your new day (II Corinthians 4:17). Just Live one more day.