The risk in trusting
- Jacob Ninan
What is it to have faith in God? Is it a belief that God will give us what we need or ask for? To have faith in God is to trust Him, to have confidence in Him, and to relate to Him on that basis (He.11:6). If we have such a faith we won't think it is risky to place our life entirely in His hands. But, honestly, do we have that kind of faith?
Do we have any hesitation to place our future in God's hands and give Him the freedom to plan anything for us that He sees fit? Perhaps we cringe at the word 'anything'! We think, "What if He gives me some sickness? What if He asks me to marry some ugly, repulsive person? What if He asks me to sell everything and give to the poor? What if He asks me to leave my home and move to some faraway place as a missionary? What if ...?"
Such thoughts are common, and may come to any of us. They are very real to us, and we can't manage to ignore them. But they come up because we haven't got to know God as He really is. We may have been listening to the devil without realising it. The devil is a liar, and one of his goals is to paint God black and to distort our perception of God even when we read the Bible.
The devil tells us that God is a demanding and exacting taskmaster, one who is waiting around the corner to catch us when we go wrong, one who is out to take away all fun from life, one who frowns if He sees us enjoying anything, one who gets a thrill out of seeing us suffer, one who always tries to teach us hard lessons, one who always reminding us about all the sins we have done, etc. But these are all blatant lies!
It is just amazing to see how good, loving, compassionate, merciful, kind, understanding, tender, gentle and gracious God is, while being all-knowing, all-powerful and all-wise too. If we understand how dirty and repugnant we would appear to His holy and pure eyes, and how He loved us so much in spite of that and gave His Son over to death in order to make us His own, we will begin to see how entirely different He is from the picture the devil has painted for us (Is.1:18).
God tells us that He has got only good plans for our future (Je.29:11). How can it be otherwise when His very nature is love? (1Jn.4:8). His wisdom is so perfect that He knows exactly what is good for us and He is also all-powerful to carry out whatever He chooses (Ps.115:3). We are puny little creatures and we don't always know what is good for us. So it is natural that many times we cannot understand how this or that can be good for us. But we must remember that even when we don't understand it, God is still in control.
When we really know God, we can surrender our lives to God and hand over the control to Him. We will always be safe doing His will. There is no risk in it! But if we yield to God wholly like this we will get to see how good He is to us.