This past Sunday I shared the story of the King of Judah, Asa. At one point in his tenure as king he was faced with a battle of impossible odds. There are many times in our lives when we face impossible odds. There are crises we face regarding our health, families, jobs, and finances that all seem impossible at times. Those are the times when we have the opportunity to look back at say, “God I remember when you did this or that for me so I know you can deliver me through this crisis!” That is the right attitude to have.
There are times when we go through tough things and the worry or fear become too much and rather than turning to God we end up trying to make things happen our way. King Asa had turned to the Lord when he was overwhelmed by an army twice the size of his own but as he became confident in his own skills he relied less and less on the Lord until he came to similar situation years later and tried to fix the situation in his own strength. The result was disaster, years of war because of a lack of trust in the Lord.
The writer of Hebrews in 11:6 has stressed to us that without faith it is impossible to please Him. Our walk with Christ is a faith walk. Everyday our focus, our hope, and our trust should be in and with Him. God has given us the gifts of our personalities, wisdom, and skill sets but they are to be all surrendered to Him. When we begin to trust in the gifts rather than the giver of the gifts we run into problems. David is an excellent example of how to keep things in perspective. In 1 Samuel chapter 30, David the warrior soon to be king is faced with a crisis, while he was away at battle, another army came into his camp and stole all of the stuff and kidnapped all of their families of his army. He is a warrior, he could easily decided, “Let’s go get these guys!” Instead, he began to think about who God is and has been to him so he pauses to ask the Lord what He would have him do. God honors his waiting to seek him and not only does David get back all that has been stolen but more that that and in the process wipes out and army that has been a hassle to Israel for years.
When we trust in the Lord, wait on Him, and seek Him first, we are always rewarded with more than we could imagine. In another example, Zechariah prophesies to Zerubbabel and Joshua. The situation is that the nation of Israel is returning from Babylonian captivity and they have great needs. They need protected; they needed to rebuild Jerusalem, and the temple. They need an army but the Lord says to them, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord of host.” God saw their great needs but the Lord said to them you will not accomplish these things in your strength but in My strength.
It is a challenge to trust God. Everything inside of us wants to make it happen in our timing and our way. When we surrender our lives to Him then our lives are His and we need to trust Him. Even when we see the messes around us, we need to determine that we are going to trust Him. Remember without faith it is impossible to please God. It is scary to trust Him, but our lives are not about us, they are about Him.
So how do we make this leap? Few days ago I talked about prayer, yesterday about the word, getting to know the Lord better helps us trust Him. Start each day, talking to Him and reading His word. The better we know someone the more we are able to trust him or her. The wonderful thing about that is, it is God’s heart that we get to know Him. He says in Jeremiah 29 that when we seek Him we will find Him and find His strength.
He wants us to know Him. He wants to have relationship with us. He wants us to experience daily peace and joy even in the middle of the storms. He created you for a purpose. He has a plan. It is really about Him. Get to know Him better and begin to enjoy life more.
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