Heart Tracks - Easy Trust?

"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....."Settled, growing trust is needed to follow God through every season of life...We're always looking for an easy trust." Larry Crabb

Larry Crabb says that, "We tend to trust God to do what we think a loving God 'ought to do.' " I think this perfectly defines what he calls our "easy trust" expectations. We want to trust a God who co-operates fully with our agenda and plans. He could not possibly desire anything that would conflict with that, with what we perceive as our own well-being. It's a distinctly modern Church of the west outlook. It's also totally unbiblical.

How settled is our trust really? Look at Proverbs 3 again. We simply cannot trust Him with all of our hearts if we are leaning upon our own understanding, wisdom, discernment, in any way. His Word plainly tells us that His ways are not our ways, yet somehow, we believe they are. I cannot begin to count the number of times I've heard church folk say "I don't think God would do that," only to see Him do exactly that, or something even more unexpected and from their perspective, completely wrong. They'd been living in that easy trust Crabb speaks of. The kind of trust where He is predictable, comfortable, and controllable. He pulls our cart, but we hold the reins. We can always trust this God, but our major problem is, this is a God we've created. He bears no resemblance to the Almighty God of the Bible.

One of the great stumbling blocks for the disciples was that Jesus was always doing things and leading them to places that made no sense to their own understanding. His way was not the way they would choose. They wished to get to the same place He was going, but their route choice would bear little resemblance to His. It certainly made no place for death on a cross. What sense could that make? The answer was none to their flesh, but everything to Jesus and His Father. Jesus had spent all of His earthly life knowing ever more of the heart and mind of His Father. He did so because He and His Father were One. They shared the same mind and same heart. This is the same relational trust every believer is called to. He calls us to a settled trust in Him that doesn't look at the ever changing landscape, a landscape that can be terrifying at times. Easy trust will never follow Him for long. Only settled trust will. Which are we trying to exercise in our day to day living?

Paul said, "I know Whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded that He will keep that which I've committed until that day." This is settled trust. There was no easy trust in Paul's life. The Holy Spirit led him into places of extreme discomfort and danger, but he knew who it was that he believed. The choice had been made. His trust was settled. Is ours?

Easy trust or settled; which are we trying to live out? The first will take us nowhere. The latter will take us ever deeper into His Life. Where is that you really want to go, and do you really want to go there with Him?

Blessings,
Pastor O