I found an interesting passage while reading my bible. I was reading Romans 4 in the Message. The first thing that struck me is the “title” that they give it—trusting God. Other versions title it Abraham and his faith. He trusted God.
“He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own
But if there is no contract in the first place, simply a promise—and God’s promise at that—you can’t break it
Abraham Trusted God
This is why the fulfillment of God’s promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way and then simply embracing him and what he does.
When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not based on what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do.
He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That’s why it is said, “Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.”
We must trust God
This says that nothing we do will help us. We have to plunge into God’s promises, trusting him to fulfill them. We should not blame or doubt. Just trust and move forward.
Trusting this way is not easy for today’s control freaks. We like to control how we do everything and what things are like, what we eat, when things happen, who we can get in touch with, and everything else, but we can’t.
When we try to control it, we aren’t trusting God. We can run right over what God would have us do, think, or say. We could be showing someone else the way to trust God, giving him or her comfort or encouragement, or helping in some other way.
I have been thinking of my small group. This is going to be their senior year. What do I want them to take away to college?
Trust from the beginning
I think the most important thing I want them to learn is to trust God with their lives, their futures, their careers, and their boyfriends. I want them to be open with God and trust him fully in their lives.
They must realize that their worth is not wrapped up in how beautiful or perfect they look, how well they do in school, how popular they are, whether they have a boyfriend or, whether men find them attractive, or how successful they are. None of those things are important because they are worth nothing to God.
He loves them. God yearns to be with them and be the most critical person in their lives. He wants to be the one they turn to when they are happy, sad, disappointed, angry, or devastated.
Mom says – God will make good on His promise!
My mom wrote (quoting Romans 4), “He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said.”
God gives us faith, and it follows that God wants us to stay in that faith. When a child looks up to us with trust in their eyes, we respond to that trust, wanting to care for their needs. How much more does our Heavenly Father respond to the faith we show Him? We do not tell God what to do but allow Him to work in our lives.
God and His way happen in my life. It is a matter of expectations—expectations that as we give our lives to God, we expect God to lead us and work in our lives.
Thanks, Mom. From the devotional, In Search of Me.
