TRUST IN THE LORD

"Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.  For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.  Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.  For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." (Jeremiah 17:5-8).

It is difficult - even heartbreaking - to watch a person self-destruct, but it's even more devastating to watch one fall apart who has professed to know and love the Lord.  Though we see this way too often, it is all so preventable.  There is a simple, yet elegant secret to happiness and success in life that can be found in the prophecy of Jeremiah that is quoted above.  The difference between success and failure in life lies simply in who we trust for the truth.  There is only one of two ways in which we can go.  Either we trust in man (ourselves), or we trust in God.  There is no in-between, no middle-of-the-road, no agnostic "maybe I do or maybe I don't."  It is either God or man.  It is the age old decision that the first couple faced in the beginning: do I eat of the Tree of Life (trust in God), or do I eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (trust in myself to choose right or wrong)?  Despite God's warning that the wrong choice would produce spiritual death, the first man and woman made that fateful choice anyway. 

Man yearns to be self-reliant and independent.  He likes to pull himself up by his own bootstraps.  He is confident that his own natural strength, intellect and will, are sufficient to accomplish any task.  This kind of rugged individualism is glamorized by Hollywood and advertising and it is contained in the very roots of national greatness.  To our natural minds it seems like a good thing to forge our own path.  After all, doesn't God help those who help themselves?  Actually, this wisdom comes from the evil one, and its fallacy is easy enough to explain.  Imagine this: if you were a coffee maker and someone cut your power cord, you would still be every bit a coffee maker, but you would be useless in the thing that you were designed to do – make coffee.  If you were a fruit tree and someone cut your trunk off at the ground, you would still be a fruit tree, but you could never fulfill your intended purpose of bearing fruit.  In the same way, we can look like one who has it all together, but if we're not tapped into God, we cannot function as God intended us to.  It's all about our source of power and life, and whether we are “plugged in” or not!  This is the thing that man fails to recognize.  When God pronounced death on Adam and Eve for eating of the wrong tree, it was not as a punishment, it was an outcome of their choice that God was trying to warn them about.  Man was created with a connectedness to God.  Through this connectedness we could receive the power and life of God Himself into our feeble mortal bodies.  Man's spirit was the point of contact into which this life was made to flow.  It was man's spirit that was made to rule over the soul and flesh of man under the loving direction of the heavenly Father.  God knew that by choosing to ignore His guidance and trust his direction, man would become disconnected from the very source of his life, and would die spiritually.  This is exactly what happened.

Another thing that man fails to factor in is that there is an adversary out there who is intent on placing him in bondage, and bending him to his will.  Satan is the god of this world, and he uses man's passions and lusts against him in order to enslave him to sin.  A good picture of this is the story of Israel when they left Canaan to go into Egypt to live.  A terrible famine had struck the ancient world, and Egypt was the only place that had food.  They found grain in abundance in Egypt.  The land of Goshen that they were given to dwell in was like a paradise.  A new Pharaoh, however, brought new changes and policies that brought Israel into cruel bondage.  The freedom that they once enjoyed was turned into harsh servitude.  In the same way, Satan provides us with many pleasures and distractions in this world that lull us to sleep and make us think that we are free; but then, one day, we wake up to discover that we are in bondage.  We cannot play Satan's game and win.  Once we turn from God and choose to paddle our own boat, we will discover that the current is too strong for us, and we are just being driven downriver to the rapids below. 

Spiritually speaking, the one who chooses to trust in him/herself above God is giving up the one true source of Life.  Jesus said to those who were trusting in themselves for their salvation, "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me.  And ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life." (John 5:39, 40).  The Apostle Paul experienced the futility of trying to achieve fulfillment and success by his own efforts, and he wrote about it in his letter to the Romans.  He said, "We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin... I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." (Romans 7:14, 18-20 NIV).  Jesus Christ is the only One Who can break the chains of spiritual bondage and let God's people go free to serve Him.  Those who trust in Christ are transported from a life of barrenness into a life of fruitfulness.  They become like trees planted beside a river whose roots dig deep and tap into the life that the waters bring.  Even in times of drought, they are fed by a never ending supply of water of life.  Jesus said, "If thou knewest the gift of God, and Who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water." (John 4:10).  By trusting in the redemptive work that Jesus Christ accomplished by His life, death, and resurrection, we can become born anew spiritually.  God will restore the connection that man once had with Him.  Our spirit will be reawakened and become united with God's Holy Spirit.  Through this renewed connection we will receive spiritual power, and experience the divine life of God flowing through us.  We will also find that sin no longer has dominion over us, but our lives will slowly become transformed into what God originally intended for us to be: children who bear the likeness of their Father.   

Trusting in the Lord is not always easy.  There are many things in this fast-paced, topsy-turvy world that bring us distress, and that tempt us toward sin.  God always has purpose and plan for our lives, though.  It may take some time for His purpose to come to light, but He can be depended upon in every circumstance.  Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who helped to hide Jews in Holland during the Nazi occupation.  She and her family were betrayed, arrested by the Germans, and sent to a concentration camp until the war ended.  We can only imagine the suffering that she endured.  Years later, she traveled worldwide telling her story and of the many ways in which God manifested Himself in that awful camp.  One night, many years after the war, as she was speaking at a church in Germany, she recognized one of the men who had been a guard at the camp where she and her family were kept.  She struggled at first with her feelings; but by the time the service ended, she had made her peace with God, and was able to minister forgiveness and salvation to that man.  Her life touched many other lives, but it was because she had chosen to trust the Lord even in the midst of great suffering.  We, too, will pass through trials in this life, but as we learn to trust our loving Father, He is able to work all things together for good.  We will discover that the only way to fulfill God's ultimate purpose for us is to stay connected with Him!