A Question of Trust

By Phillip Lemons

Also available as a podcast at:
http://thelife.com/blogs/experience/kindle/2008/09/06/a-question-of-trust-3/

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Can I believe God loves me and not trust Him to take care of me?

The question came as I was wrestling with whether to trust God with something important. I say I believe God loves me. I say I believe He has my best interest in mind. Yet somehow, I’m uncertain. Like a kid who is told to eat his broccoli because it’s good for him, I think, yeah but it can’t taste as good as cake.

Sometimes it’s easy to trust God, but in other times I’m just not quite sure. I grew up afraid I would end up marrying an ugly woman. Somehow I got it into my mind that marrying a pretty woman was like eating cake instead of broccoli. That there could be a pretty woman that was also on God’s approved list was unthinkable. After all, to want to marry a pretty woman is selfish. For years I wrestled, afraid to pursue what I wanted and afraid to end up with what God wanted.

So we come back to the question. Can I believe God loves me and not trust Him to take care of me? Does a God who wants my best interest desire to stick me with a wife I don’t want? Somehow this doesn’t add up to me.

“When your son asks you for fish or for bread, do you give him a snake or a stone?” Jesus asks. “If sinful people know how to give good gifts to their children, wouldn’t God who is perfect give good gifts to His children when they ask” (See Matthew 7:9-11)?

Later Paul asks, “If God was willing to give His own Son to die for us, why would He refuse to give us a good gift of lesser cost?” (See Romans 8:32)

The only way I can believe God loves me and not trust Him to take care of me is to believe He’s too weak to take care of me. An all powerful god who doesn’t have my best interest in mind clearly does not love me. Can I look at the sacrifice of Jesus and believe God doesn’t love me passionately? That He isn’t willing to spare any cost to get me back?

Does God love me? Do I trust Him?

Questions: As was asked in the devotional, “Does God love me? Do I trust Him?” Do you believe that God is there for you in the situation you are in now?

About this Author: http://thelife.com/experience/devotionalformen/authors/phillip-lemons/

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