Trusting God is not having confident feelings about him – it’s an act of trust in the character of Christ. Step out in faith on the fact that Jesus and his Word are true.
I’m Joni Eareckson Tada to bless you with one final poem.
And I’ve been sharing some of my favorites all week long on this National Poetry Week. You know, for most of us, the Christian life is – it’s basically a struggle, right, to depend on what is true about God from the Bible instead of relying on our own emotions or assessment of things. That’s certainly true for me in my wheelchair. Please don’t think that depending on God and his Word has been a breeze. Far from it. Like you, I struggle to depend on his promises and not do things based on my feelings. I wish I were a little more like the apostle Paul. I mean, that man was confident in all his many trials not because he could say, “I know why all this is happening to me,” but because he could say – as he said to Timothy, “I know [in] whom I have believed.” The God that Paul trusted was the one who, by his own power, had set the sun and moon and stars in motion; who, with his infinite wisdom, had ladled out the oceans and dreamed up time and space, and scattered rain and hail, carved out rivers, and conceived in his own mind our very existence.
But for Paul, there was another, a bigger, an even better reason why he could trust God with all his many afflictions. For him, the supreme reason he could place his confidence in God was because this same God laid aside his divine splendor, and took on the form of a lowly servant, and died a martyr’s death for us. And if God had done that, surely, he had proven his good intentions. So, when we suffer, when God covers our eyes with a blanket so we can’t see what he’s doing, he nevertheless deserves to be given the benefit of the doubt, right, to put it mildly? For he has proved his good intentions at the cross and that makes him worthy of our trust. It’s like this poem by Marion Donaldson. She writes…
The Hands that shaped the flaming spheres
and set them spinning, vast light-years away from Planet Earth,
have laid aside the Robes of State,
donned human likeness by the great indignity of birth.
The Hands, responsive to Love’s Plan,
that formed the God-reflector, Man, of dust and destiny,
outstretched – by Man’s fierce hate impaled –
wrought life anew, Love’s Plan unveiled upon Golgotha’s Tree.
The Hands that found it nothing strange
to pucker up a mountain range or ladle out a sea,
that balance Nature’s systems still,
and shape all History to His will, hold, and are molding, me!
What a beautiful poem, because each line sets the stage for why we should trust God. Because ultimately, trusting him is not having confident feelings about him. It’s an act of the will. It’s an act of trust in the character of Christ. It is telling yourself to act upon what you know to be true – and you know that Jesus and his Word are true, right? So, trusting is stepping out in faith on that fact, although your emotions may drag you in the opposite direction – no matter! We trust because of Jesus and his Word. One of the shortest Bible verses you should memorize – and I’m going to tell you, you’ve got to memorize it – is Psalm 62:8, “Trust in [the Lord] at all times.” By the way, if you liked that poem by Marion Donaldson, then visit joniradio.org and download it for free. Or you can always ask us to mail it to you at joniradio.org. Finally, trust in the Lord at all times, for he who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also give us the grace to trust him still?
© Joni and Friends