TRUST in GOD

Psalms 37:3-5 Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.

I love this scripture. Sadly, it is one that is often sliced up and quoted only in part. People love the He shall give you the desires of your heart part and quote it as if it was our ‘due’ simply because we are Christians. You’ve heard me say it before and you’ll hear it again, “God is always faithful to do His part but we must do our part.”

Our part contains action verbs and I love action verbs! In my faith walk, to me, action verbs are where I get off my tush where I’m sitting with my hand of expectation out and actually seek the Lord. Yes, He loves us unconditionally and will never forsake us. He said so, it is so. Yet as the perfect Father He is, He does not dole out ‘heart’s desires’ to a child that is not ready or mature enough to handle everything they might ask for. And let’s face it, some of our heart’s desires are completely selfish and may not line up with His will for our lives. This is where the action verbs come in.

Trust in the Lord…Do good… Dwell and Feed on His faithfulness…Delight yourself in the Lord…Commit your way to the Lord…Trust also in Him. The center of the passage is Him. It’s not about our heart’s desires. It’s Him and our relationship with Him.

It’s one thing to say you trust (action verb) in the Lord but what does that really mean? When you don’t get what you want when you want it and you’re bemoaning your ill fate, questioning God, “When, Lord, when? Why, Lord, why?” are you trusting Him then? Trusting Him means you believe He will always move, or not move, in your best interest. His ways are higher than our ways and He sees the big picture where we tend to focus on the crisis of the moment. Big picture God vision is clear and precise; our tunnel vision is clouded by human emotion and impatience. I take this opportunity to point out that in the references scripture Trust in the Lord and Trust also in Him make it clear that trusting in the Lord is key. It opens and ends the scripture. That’s not a coincidence.

Trusting in the Lord requires we understand that sometime His answers are Yes, sometimes No and sometimes Not Now. We cannot naively go about thinking anything we desire will be brought to us. You wouldn’t hand a 14 year old the keys to family car just because they wanted to take their friends for a ride on a Friday night, would you? It wouldn’t matter how much they wanted to take the car or what they’ve promised their friends, they are neither mature enough to make good decisions nor skilled enough as drivers to handle the responsibilities that come with the car. As the parent, you see this, they cannot. As our Heavenly Father, He makes the same determinations about us and our desires and wishes. We have no idea what He may be protecting us from by telling us No or Not Now. Accepting the No or Not Now in faith that He is working in our best interest is trusting the Lord. Stomping around, crying and wailing like a toddler is not.

When Lord is the source, the heart, and the greatest object of our desire, we want what He wants, His perfect will for our lives. There are many good things in this world but we have to be careful about what we want and why. When the Lord is our greatest and first love, we are delighted in Him; every desire of our hearts will be perfectly fulfilled. That's the promise of this wonderful word.