Trust in the LORD - with all your heart
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6
It would be naïve of me, ladies, to think that everyone was privy to the years of innocent trust I experienced. Life is not always so kind. In any case, how does one progress from child-like faith to a definite, willful determination to trust in the Lord with all your heart, no matter what happens?
My child-like faith was, and is, my ticket to heaven where I will once again see my mother. However, like any child I needed to grow up. What I was missing out on was time spent with God. I knew He was holy and that was awesome; but He seemed entirely remote—high and lifted up, so-to-speak. It was time spent in the Bible with the help of the Holy Spirit that made the character of God jump off the pages into my heart.
I could see that He loved me enough to send His only Son to separation and death. I felt for the first time the agony Christ experienced in Gethsemane. I saw that the Old Testament promises were no longer obscured by time, but fulfilled in Jesus. I understood: the Father of the heavenly lights…does not change like shifting shadows (James 1:17); Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). The Westminster Catechism I learned as a teen was true: “God is Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.”
The Hebrew word for trust is batah: properly, “to hie to, to hasten to for refuge”; figuratively, “to be confident, secure in, sure of.” Webster’s defines trust as: “assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.” I now am “confident, secure in, sure of” my God, and I constantly “hie” to Him for refuge.
Integrity is a buzz word with our grandsons, also a good word for God. On a recent hike in the mountains we crossed a swift moving, rocky creek on an exceedingly wobbly foot bridge. The view from the side revealed a sagging support system capable of instant collapse at any time. It had lost its integrity. God’s character will never collapse.
Does it make sense to you why I now trust the Lord wholeheartedly? What a fool I was: He who trusts in himself is a fool (Proverbs 28:26)!
Nancy P
