Earned Trust
December 19, 2018
I’m sitting in the hospital waiting room this morning while Molly undergoes a variety of tests. She’s having a bone scan and a CT scan to be sure that there is no cancer in the rest of her body. These tests require that dye be injected and allowed to course throughout her body. The contrast allows them to identify anything suspicious. Since they have to fill her body with dye, they first have to be sure that she is not pregnant! Now that would be something! Let’s just say that absent divine intervention, it would not be possible for her to be pregnant. Like Ricky said to Lucy, I said to her, “If you’re pregnant, you’re going to have some “splaining” to do!”
Since our kids are now 19 and 17, we are between the days of having young kids and having grandkids. We loved being the parents of young kids, so even though I know she’s not pregnant, I tried to imagine what it would be like to have Molly tell me that she is pregnant. First, she’d have to pick me up off the floor. Next, she would probably expect that I would be suspicious that the baby could be mine, so she would assure me that she has been faithful and that the baby is mine. Even though I would not understand how she could be pregnant, knowing Molly as I do, I would immediately accept that the miraculous had happened rather than believe that she had been unfaithful. Over the 30+ years that I have known her, she has always been honest, loyal, truthful, dependable and faithful. She’s never given me any reason to suspect her of anything else.
As I thought about that, I thought about the trustworthiness and faithfulness of our great God. There is so much in the Bible that is hard to understand. How could Sarah become pregnant at 90 years old? How could God part the Red Sea so the Israelites could cross? How could a donkey rebuke a man? How can a child be born of a virgin? I could go on and on. Then there are the things that happen in our own lives that are hard to understand. Why does God allow evil? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer? Why am I going through this very difficult trial? What does God want me to learn from it? When will it end? So many things about God that we just can’t comprehend. The temptation is to question God. How can God be good and allow these things to happen? If God really was involved in His creation and in my life, He would remove this suffering from me.
This is dangerous thinking. It’s how Satan twists the truth so we will believe a lie. Just like he did in the garden of Eden when he said to Eve, “Did God really say ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” From that simple, cunning question, he was able to get Eve to question God and eat the forbidden fruit. Eve lost sight of the goodness and trustworthiness of God. God has proven that He is faithful and trustworthy to us over and over again. We know that He loves us because of Christmas, God became a man. We know that He loves us because of Easter; God died for our sins. We know that He loves us because of His Providence in our lives. How many times in your life has God worked out an impossible situation? How many times have circumstances ‘coincidentally’ worked out for your good? That’s God’s Providence. He works all things in accordance with His will.
In any relationship you have, trust has to be earned. A reputation for honesty is a good start, but trust is earned by repeated minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, year by year, trustworthiness. There is no substitute for that. Molly has exhibited those characteristics as long as I have known her. God has too! Fifteen times in the psalms alone, David and other wrote some form of “Trust God!” My favorite is Psalm 20:7, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” As Christmas approaches in less than a week now, the reason for the season is that Jesus was born, but He was born to die for our sins. How else could God earn our trust more than by becoming man and dying on the cross for us. I know that Christmas can be a painful time for some of you. Perhaps you are missing a loved one who has died, or you are estranged from a child in your family, or you are suffering physically with some illness or malady that won’t seem to go away. Christmas tells us that God is with us. He is trustworthy. He loves us. When our time on earth is done, He will deliver us home to His arms. He has promised us that, and our God has proven to be trustworthy.
P.S. Just got word that Molly is NOT pregnant. Whew!!
